WUNRN
Please see 2 parts of this WUNRN
release on the China policy on births.
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CHINA COULD OVERTHROW ONE-CHILD RULE
By Allie Townsend - September 9,
2010
Reuters
The Chinese government is beginning to rethink its famed one-child limit as
it begins to lift the restriction in five provinces with low birth rates.
The pilot projects, which are set to begin in 2011, allow
for a second child per family if at least one spouse is an only child. USA Today reports that
Beijing, Shanghai and four other provinces will follow suit in 2012, with
nationwide adoption of the new policy expected by 2013 or 2014. In 1979,
China's one-child policy was introduced after decades of huge population boom
followed by mass death due to resulting food shortages. The policy, which has
prevented 400 million births, restricted the country's ethnic Han majority to
have only one child per family (exempting most ethnic minorities) and has
remained nearly the same since, though a few exceptions have been made. (Some
rural farm families have been allowed to have a second child if the first is a
girl.)
(More on TIME: A Brief History of China's One-Child Policy)
A wide gender imbalance, as well as the need for more children to care for parents, has likely influenced the government's tight control on the country's birthrate. (Even though prenatal sex screening was banned in 1994, female infanticide is still in practice because of the cultural preference for boys.) A study published in the British Medical Journal in 2009 found that China has some 32 million more boys than girls under the age of 20.
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http://newsblaze.com/story/20100911085334zzzz.nb/topstory.html Also via Human Rights Without Frontiers
Reggie
Littlejohn, President of Women's Rights Without Frontiers and
One-Child Policy Expert for Human Rights Without Frontiers and China Aid
Association*
11
September 2010 - USA Today ran an article on September 9 proclaiming that
"
Don't be fooled. I rejoice for the families that may
eventually be allowed a second child under this proposed "pilot
program." Nevertheless,
1) The problem with the One Child Policy is not the
number of children allowed. Rather, it is the fact that the policy is enforced
through forced abortion, forced sterilization and infanticide. Even if some
couples will eventually be allowed to have two children under this "pilot
program," the Chinese Communist Party has emphatically not stated that
they will cease their appalling methods of enforcement. Women who get pregnant
without a "birth permit" will still be dragged out of their homes,
strapped down to tables and forced to abort babies that they want, even up to
the ninth month of pregnancy. It does not matter whether you are pro-life or
pro-choice on this issue. No one supports forced abortion, because it is not a
choice. If you want to read a dozen expert reports on the current, coercive
implementation of
2) The announcement of this so-called
"relaxation" of the Policy seems strategically timed to draw
attention away from the plight of blind One Child Policy activist Chen
Guangcheng, who was released on the same day. Chen served a four-year prison
sentence during which he endured severe torture and deprivation of medical
treatment. Chen exposed the fact that there were 130,000 mass forced abortions
and forced sterilizations in
3) Areas in which two children are allowed are especially
vulnerable to "gendercide," the sex-selective abortion of females.
Allowing some couples to have two children will not solve
This gender imbalance is a powerful, driving force behind
trafficking in women and sexual slavery, not only in
So, don't be fooled. The coercive enforcement of
*Reggie Littlejohn is President of Women's Rights Without
Frontiers, a non-partisan, international coalition to oppose forced abortion
and sexual slavery in
Website: http://www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org/