The incidence of mental illness and torture amongst Tibetan refugees, due to religious and political oppression by mainland China, was much higher than expected, researchers from universities of the USA and Canada have found. They suggest that NGOs and the international community should be aware of the fact that the human rights abuses (on Tibetans) may have lasting health effects, and were unacceptable under international law.
The researchers suggested that NGOs and countries like the USA, Canada and the UK, which were working towards building trade relations with China, should be putting human rights at the forefront of negotiations (with China). Such ties should not be established at the expense of human rights abuses, they said in the findings of their study published in the BMC International Health and Human Rights.
The researchers evaluated all published reports on mental health outcomes within the Tibetan population and revealed that the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder, a disorder causing recurrent nightmares, crying, and numbness, was as high as 23 per cent of all refugees. Anxiety disorder ranged from 25-77 per cent of the refugee population, and major depression was as high as 57per cent among them.
They also found that the reported incidence of torture and human rights violations were unacceptably high, and the most common torture techniques were beatings, electrical torture, being forced to provide blood, and being imprisoned.
They conducted systematic evaluations of torture, imprisonment and major human rights violations and examined their impact on mental health amongst the refugees who had successfully taken refuge in India or Nepal, because accessing accurate information on the status of human rights in Tibet is difficult due to state censorship.
In current Tibet, the ethnic Tibetans are forbidden to worship their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, or to speak openly on political issues and such actions could result in criminal prosecutions, said the findings of the study.
The researchers found that the prevalence of human rights violations was extremely high among the refugees, and likely corresponded to their increased incidence of mental health illness, including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, and depression.
The study provided reliable evidence that human rights violations within Tibet were unacceptably high and impacting on the mental health of refugees. (ANI)
