The ****trait of a Cruel "Olympic Host" -- Tibet's Forgotten Children
Tibet's Forgotten Children
Dr. C¨¦sar Chelala
Special to The Epoch Times
Apr 25, 2008
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Indian and Tibetan children display placards at Rajghat the memorial of
Mahatma Gandhi in New Delhi. (Manpreet Romana/AFP/Getty Images)
Every summer, in a Tibetan ritual called Planting of the Arrow, Tibetans
invoke the protection of the mountain God. During that ceremony, each
family brings a long decorated staff, its "arrow," which is sanctified
and then placed inside a corral to remain there until the following
year. Tibetan children could very well use that protection.
Studies on children's health in Tibet reveal that almost half of them
suffer from malnutrition. As a result, they have stunted growth and
potentially defective intellectual development. In spite of the Chinese
government insistence on the region's economic and social progress,
Tibet continues to be one of the poorest regions in the world, with a
per capita income of less than US$100.
New public health and social policies are needed to ensure that children
won't continue to be victims of a situation that places them, and their
culture, at considerable risk.
In 1996, the Western Consortium for Public Health, a private U.S.-based
organization, had concluded that the height of Tibetan children was a
matter of grave concern, and indicated that 60% of the children studied
fell drastically below accepted international growth reference values.
Their data indicated that children's shortness was a result of
nutritional deficiencies¡ªchronic malnutrition during the first three
years of life¡ªrather than the consequence of genetics or altitude, as
had been previously suggested.
Chronic malnutrition makes children more vulnerable to diseases common
to children in the developing world such as intestinal and respiratory
infections, which are frequently fatal. In addition, chronic
malnutrition affects children's neurological and physical development.
Although the Chinese authorities proudly claim that they have
significantly reduced Tibetan infant mortality rates, those rates are
still much higher than the ones for infants in China in its entirety.
The essential findings of the Western Consortium for Public Health were
later confirmed by a study carried out by Dr. Nancy Harris¡ªan expert on
Tibet's health issues¡ªand researchers from the Public Health Institute
in Santa Cruz, California, the University of California at Berkeley, and
the Tibet Medical Research Institute in Lhasa. For over a decade, Dr.
Harris has spent six months each year in Tibet. She and her partners are
bringing basic medical care to more than 8,500 Tibetan children and
families, who often live in settlements lacking electricity and basic
sanitation.
According to the study conducted on 2,078 Tibetan children up to 7 years
of age, stunting was linked to malnutrition and was often accompanied by
bone and skin disorders, lack of hair pigmentation, and other diseases
of malnutrition. 67 percent of the children studied also had rickets, a
bone disease most frequently caused by vitamin D deficiency.
The study was carried out in children from 11 counties containing more
than 50 diverse urban and non-urban communities in the Tibet Autonomous
Region (TAR) of China. The children's health situation is further
complicated by poverty and a poorly developed health infrastructure.
In 1993, Dr. Harris launched the Tibet Child Nutrition and Collaborative
Health Project. Although initially it got financed by Dr. Harris
herself, since 1994 it has received external funding. Dr. Harris and her
team are implementing programs aimed at lowering infant and maternal
mortality levels through a health care training and midwifery program.
Many who were skeptical of the team's approach to solving health
problems now praise its innovative approach to the health emergency
situation in Tibet. Dr. Harris believes that most of what is needed to
improve Tibet's child health situation already exists in Tibet's vast
array of medicinal plants. In that regard, the collaboration of Tibet's
traditional practitioners has proven to be essential for her program.
They, along with the spiritual leaders, are the ones who can lead a
community to change their health practices.
To further improve Tibet's children health and nutritional status,
guidelines already successfully used by Dr. Harris on a limited
children's population should be followed on a wider scale: a rickets
education and prevention program, encouragement of the use of an
indigenous high-protein root called droma, sup****t for traditional
Tibetan medicine complemented with allopathic drugs when indicated, and
a health care training and delivery program.
These measures should be complemented by strengthening the
infrastructure and access to health services, as well as by policies
aimed at reducing poverty and illiteracy. The children of Tibet, for too
long the victims of inadequate care and attention, deserve no less.
Dr. C¨¦sar Chelala, an international medical consultant based in New
York, writes extensively on health and human rights issues. He is the
author of Children's Health in the Americas, a publication of the Pan
American Health Organization.
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