The Dechen Phodrang monastery sits on top of a steep hill overlooking the Bhutanese capital, Thimphu. Because the 16th century, prayer flags have fluttered inside the hills around Dechen Phodrang, certainly one of thousands of monastic orders scattered throughout this tiny Himalayan kingdom.
The Buddhist faith is tightly woven into the material of Bhutan’s fiercely protected national identity. Monks are still revered by large sections of the population and for lots remain a vital part of daily life, performing birth and death rituals and presiding over prayers at national holidays.
For centuries, the monasteries have provided a house and an education to thousands of Bhutan’s poorest children. Greater than 4,000 live and study in monasteries around the country, usually sent by parents who can’t afford to feed their large families or pay for the uniforms and textbooks required by government schools. Officially, the monasteries take children of 7 and older. Actually, many take children as young as five after they have nowhere else to head.
Since 1971, Dechen Phodrang have been home to about 450 student monks, many coming to the monastery from villages within the mountainous interior. Living conditions are basic. The youngsters sleep on mats at the floor of the drafty classrooms, and respiratory infections, lice and scabies are a part of life. The monastery struggles to give basic sanitation facilities and adequate food for the lads.
“Lots of these children who come here arrive because their situation at house is desperate. We strive to do the suitable we will for them,” says Kencho Tshering, principal of Dechen Phodrang’s monastic school. “Most don’t see their families for most months, or maybe years, as many families can’t afford the adventure. There’s an understanding that after the men enter the monastery, their lives at the moment are committed to religious knowledge.”
Until three months ago, the monastic students here were bring to an end from state or social welfare programmes. The govt. rarely intervenes within the monastic orders, and the monasteries have their very own courts, which operate outside the state penal system.
Now, a groundbreaking project is entering this closed-off world. a toddler protection framework is being organize in the monastic school system. Designed and funded by Unicef Bhutan, it aims to instil the theory of kid rights into the monastic orders and, more practically, provide children within the monasteries with a manner of reporting violence, neglect, mistreatment or abuse. It aims to forge links between the monastic orders, the police and state child welfare services.
“The concept these children have basic rights – to be protected against harm, to good health, sanitation – is a brand new concept to a few of the monks who’ve themselves passed through a monastic education, where there’s an emphasis on hard discipline and on total integration into spiritual life,” says Dorji Wangdi, child protection officer at Unicef Bhutan.
Dechen Phodrang was selected as one of many test sites for the scheme. All teachers, senior monks and pupils have attended child rights workshops, and a baby protection officer is now housed permanently at Dechen Phodrang to behave as a bridge between the monastery and state child welfare services.
“Before, the lay and monastic systems were very separate, except in cases of significant criminal activities, but now any response to any child rights issue is co-ordinated between the monastic and federal justice systems,” says Wangdi. “Simply because a baby has entered the monastic order doesn’t mean they need to not get the identical protection as the other child in Bhutan. The authorities here should remember that the child’s welfare is the responsibility of the state to boot.”
Wangdi says the consequences are already showing. Caused by child rights workshops, corporal punishment – banned within the remainder of Bhutan’s schools but still used widely in monastic ones – has stopped at Dechen Phodrang.
When Phub Gyeltshen, a shy 16-year-old, first came to the college three years ago, he had already spent years within the state education system. His family took him to the monastery after struggling to feed him and his four sisters.
“The primary months were very hard,” he says. “I missed school and my family and learning English. i used to be also bullied and beaten by the older boys, and in addition at school , but i assumed this was just something I needed to bear as i used to be by myself.
“Now i do know that there are things i will be able to do, there’s someone here on the monastery who has told us that we will go and tell him if anything is inaccurate and they will hearken to us. Things are better now, and i am glad that they have got put these items in to assist us.”
While the project is seen to were successful at Dechen Phodrang, the key challenge is scaling up this initiative on a countrywide scale. Bhutan is essentially mountainous, with many smaller monastic schools in isolated and remote locations removed from the capital city.
“We’re often not likely ready to assess conditions at a lot of the smaller schools, especially in the course of the winter months,” says Wangdi. “Putting this programme of kid rights and adequate reporting chains into these monastic schools goes to be an incredible problem. It should be difficult gaining the boldness of both the monks and likewise the kids as there won’t always be someone accessible to be some extent of contact – so we need to find ways of ensuring rights at the moment are implemented.”
Despite the question marks that hang over the way forward for the fledgling child protection scheme, it’s being heralded because the first step in preventing Bhutan’s 4,000 child monks from falling throughout the gaps.
“It’s hard because, in our culture, the pupils listed here are already monks, they’re here to immerse themselves within the spiritual world,” says Tshering. “However the world has changed and we need to change too, and ensure that each one the kids listed here are treated equally to these within the outside world.”
