Child Exodus from Tibet
By Birgit van de Wijer.
144 Pages | April 2006 | Softcover | Birgit van de Wijer, uitgever | ISBN 9078464011.
Tibetan parents send their children to school abroad in massive numbers . . . thousands never arrive: they die from freezing, starvation, exhaustion, hypothermia; they are caught by the Chinese or Nepalese police and sent back over the border. How desperate must a parent be to entrust their child to strangers to undertake a thousand kilometre journey in a strange convoy over the snowbound Himalayas? Since the Chinese occupation of independent Tibet in 1950, the country has slowly been choking in a stranglehold. In the early Eighties, dying Tibet began to send its children to India.
In this book Birgit van de Wijer for the first time illuminates this horror from all angles: why children flee, how many flee, their escape routes, the risks they run, their reception in Nepal and India, and the psychological consequences. Above all, the children tell their stories themselves. The book is based on interviews, that the author conducted on the spot at great risk. The book grew from the conviction of an author, who hopes that this exodus can finally be stopped.
Child Exodus from Tibet
By Birgit van de Wijer.
144 Pages | April 2006 | Softcover | Birgit van de Wijer, uitgever | ISBN 9078464011.
Tibetan parents send their children to school abroad in massive numbers . . . thousands never arrive: they die from freezing, starvation, exhaustion, hypothermia; they are caught by the Chinese or Nepalese police and sent back over the border. How desperate must a parent be to entrust their child to strangers to undertake a thousand kilometre journey in a strange convoy over the snowbound Himalayas? Since the Chinese occupation of independent Tibet in 1950, the country has slowly been choking in a stranglehold. In the early Eighties, dying Tibet began to send its children to India.
In this book Birgit van de Wijer for the first time illuminates this horror from all angles: why children flee, how many flee, their escape routes, the risks they run, their reception in Nepal and India, and the psychological consequences. Above all, the children tell their stories themselves. The book is based on interviews, that the author conducted on the spot at great risk. The book grew from the conviction of an author, who hopes that this exodus can finally be stopped.