USCIRF hearing: Children ‘bear the brunt’ of international religious freedom violations

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Children “bear the brunt” of international religious freedom violations, panelists at an April 30 hearing of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said.

Vicky Hartzler, chair of USCIRF, an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission that monitors religious freedom around the globe, said the group is “deeply concerned about countries where governments restrict religious education and prevent children from learning or practicing their faith.”

“These policies are designed to erode religious identity by preventing families from passing beliefs on to the next generation,” she said.

Hartzler, a former Republican member of the House from Missouri, said that in China, “authorities have imposed sweeping bans on religious education and practice for Uyghur Muslim and Tibetan Buddhist children, the government has separated tens of thousands of Uyghur and Tibetan children from their families through state-run boarding schools that enforce Mandarin language instruction and prohibit all religious teaching.”

“These policies are intended to sever children from their faith traditions and assimilate them into state-approved ideology, a core element of the Chinese Communist Party’s genocidal strategy targeting Uyghur Muslims and other minorities,” she said.

Harzler also expressed grave concern about prohibitions on Christian children attending church in China, as well as schools expecting them to denounce their faith.

In Ukraine, she said, “we are also gravely concerned about the ongoing abduction and forced transfer of Ukrainian children by Russian authorities, actions the U.N. has concluded amount to crimes against humanity.”

“Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, thousands of children have been taken from their families, relocated to Russia or Russian-controlled territories, and subjected to state-run programs that attempt to strip away their Ukrainian culture, including religious identities,” she said. “These policies inflict deep trauma on families and represent a systematic effort to erase the national cultural and religious identity of an entire generation.”

Asif Mahmood, vice chair of USCIRF, added that the group is also concerned about the Taliban’s “tight control” over a growing number of madrasas, or religious schools, in Afghanistan, “which they use to impose a rigid state-mandated interpretation of Islam.”

“Families fear these schools expose children to indoctrination rather than genuine learning,” he said. “Girls face even more severe barriers as they are banned from attending school beyond age 12; the long-term trauma of these abuses is profound.”

Mohamed Imran, a witness at the panel discussion, who first came to the U.S. as a Rohingya refugee and is now a student at the University of Washington, said, “We are an Indigenous people of Burma, yet we have been treated as if we never belonged.”

“Our identity was denied, our citizenship was taken, and our dignity was slowly destroyed, largely because of our faith. As a Muslim, we were targeted, not only for who we are, but for what we believe,” Imran said.

Imran said he is now a U.S. citizen, but said, “Right now, Rohingya children are still living the life I once lived.”

Across regimes around the globe that USCIRF says conduct violations on freedom of religion or belief, “children are the ones who bear the brunt of religious freedom violations,” Hartzler said.

“Perpetrators target them because they are defenseless, knowing that harming girls and boys can destabilize families and entire faith communities; the consequences are severe,” she said. “Social cohesion deteriorates. Hope for the future fades, and the very survival and identity of these communities are put at risk.”

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