WUNRN
THE GIRL BABY/CHILD IN CHINA:
"In
modern China, baby girls can be sold for as little as $500. Boys cost
$1000-plus."
|
China
- One Child Policy Creates Bbooming Black Market for 70,000 Children
Kidnapped Annually
China's
Stolen Children Documentary |
|
|
(Australian
Broadcasting Corporation) ~~ Monday April 21 2008 |
Ten years after the powerful film The Dying Rooms, about the neglect of abandoned
babies in Chinese orphanages, Dispatches returns to a very different China
where the infamous 'One Child' policy has had the horrific side effect of a
boom in stolen children.
It is estimated that 70,000 children are kidnapped there every year and traded
on the black market.
Untold thousands of other people are tragically affected by the trade… this
film features remarkable access to those at its core: desperate parents
searching for a stolen son; a trafficker who brokers deals and who sold his own
child; a young couple having to give away their newborn daughter; a private
investigator who hunts for stolen children; a boy rescued from traffickers.
In modern China, baby girls can be sold for as little as $500. Boys cost
$1000-plus. "China’s Stolen Children" intimately reveals the depth of
this tragedy and explores the connection between child trafficking, an alarming
shortage of girls and the country's stringent birth control policy. It's a link
the Chinese Government rejects.
This documentary shows a side of China that authorities would rather keep
hidden – at any time, and especially in the long run-up to the Olympics. Its
makers worked undercover, posing as tourists, constantly moving hotels and
changing their telephone simcards.
"China's Stolen Children" recently won a Royal Television Society
Award and its director has been nominated for this weekend's BAFTAs. Narrated
by Sir Ben Kingsley, made for Channel 4 and HBO, "China's Stolen
Children" airs on Four Corners at 8.30 pm Monday 21 April, on ABC1.
This film provides an intimate portrait of the crisis this stringent government
policy has created among China's poorest people.
_____________________________________________________________
The Dying Rooms
In
1995 Brian Woods and Kate Blewett uncovered the systematic neglect of abandoned
babies in orphanages in China. Watch The Dying Rooms.
WATCH HERE -
Click to Site, next to Play, then to the name of the film The Dying
Rooms, and then Play.
______________________________________________________________
Chinese Bid to Stop ‘Kids for Sale’ Film
Richard Brooks
The Chinese embassy in London is trying to stop Channel 4 broadcasting a
documentary about the trade in stolen children in China.
The embassy is considering seeking an injunction to try to prevent China’s
Stolen Children being shown on October 8. It has also been in touch with Ofcom,
the broadcasting regulator, and is expected to write to Channel 4’s board.
The Chinese are angry that they are not being given an advance screening of the
documentary, which claims that the trade in stolen children is widespread. C4
says it is not its policy to show such programmes in advance.
However, the programme makers have provided the embassy with a three-page
letter detailing their evidence. Professor Kevin Bales, a consultant to the
United Nations programme on people trafficking, says in the film that at least
70,000 young children a year are sold or stolen in China.
Zhao Shangsen, press counsellor to the embassy, wrote to the programme makers
saying: “The programme is deeply flawed, ignorant and simplistic.” He denies
any link between child trafficking and China’s one-child policy, pointing to
trafficking in other countries which do not have state-imposed birth control.
Shangsen wrote that China has made progress in trying to end child trafficking,
which was on a far smaller scale than the programme suggested. “There is no
good in finger-pointing at China,” Shangsen wrote to C4.
The programme makers filmed undercover in China, speaking to parents who had
had a child stolen or had sold a child, and to traffickers. More boys are taken
than girls because they will grow up to earn more money. Most are taken for
childless couples, although some are sold into prostitution.
Channel 4 has already conceded a right of reply at the end of the programme to
the Chinese embassy.
China’s Stolen Children is produced by the same team that made The Dying Rooms
and Return to the Dying Rooms in the mid1990s which showed that many
second-born children were dumped in orphanages and left to die.
The programmes led to a diplomatic row between China and the Tory government.
Since then, trade links between Britain and China have strengthened
considerably.
With the Olympics in Beijing next year, China’s human rights and environmental
record will be scrutinised in the West.
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