Date: Friday March 23, 2001
Place: UN in Geneva
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to speak out about the situation of female Falun Gong practitioners detained in China. I am a Falun Gong Practitioner and I have been following this issue, since the crackdown in China against Falun Gong, and would like to provide some information for those attending today.
Recent reports coming out of Mainland China indicate a trend where the use of rape and sexual abuse has been employed against female Falun Gong practitioners: women who are being held in labor camps for refusing to give up their spiritual belief.
Some facts regarding this tragic situation
50,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been detained without legal procedure. About 25,000 are women they are grandmothers, nursing mothers, and students. Even young girls have not been spared and have been detained with adult criminals. Since Falun Gong practitioners hold themselves to a high moral standard, following the principles of Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance, these techniques have been specifically designed to inflict the greatest trauma and shame upon these women in order to force them to renounce their belief and be released.
As one policeman told his victim "what is forbearance? Forbearance is that I can rape you but you don't report it." and then he did.
One notorious example is the abuses that are occurring at the Masanjia Labor Camp in Liaoning Province. The authorities at the Masanjia Labor Camp regularly use rape, threat of rape, electric shock and sexual abuse against female Falun Gong practitioners.
We received a report that 18 female practitioners were stripped naked and thrown into the cells of male prisoners to be raped and abused at will. None of these 18 women have been allowed any contact with the outside world or their families. We cannot obtain any information regarding their current condition, the extent of their abuse, or even if they are still alive. This same camp also forces female practitioners to stand naked in front of TV monitors as a form of humiliation, to stand in the snow naked for extended periods, stripped and shocked with stun batons on their genitals, and sexually degraded and humiliated while being interrogated to force them to renounce their belief.
The Chinese government awarded the Masanjia Labor Camp as a "model" camp and sent personnel from there to train other labor camps in their techniques. As a result we are receiving reports that these techniques have now spread to several other camps in a wide region. The authorities at these camps have repeatedly told practitioners that they have been directed that no measure is considered too severe to use against Falun Gong practitioners. If a victim dies from the abuse they are authorized to document it as a suicide. In addition, this treatment is actually in violation of China's own laws granting prisoner's rights.
In my allotted time I am only able to present you with a tiny sample of the reported cases on this subject. We call for an independent investigation by the international community to stop these abuses against female Falun Gong practitioners and all other Falun Gong practitioners being held illegally.
Category: Torture of Women
