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China offers parents cash for girls
September 1, 2004
China is offering to pay couples a premium for producing baby girls to counter
an alarming gender imbalance created by the country's one-child population
control policy.
Last year, 117 boys were born for every 100 girls in China, compared with a
global average of 105 to 100.
Faced by a socially destabilising shortage of more than 30-million women by
2020, senior family planning officials said on Thursday that they will offer
welfare incentives to couples with two daughters and tighten the prohibition on
sex-selective abortions.
"China has set the goal of lowering the sex ratio to a normal level by 2010,"
said Zhao Baige, vice-minister of the National Population and Family Planning
Commission.
To reverse the trend, pilot programmes are already under way in China's poorest
provinces. In some areas, couples with two daughters and no sons have been
promised an annual payment of R430 (about $80 US) once they reach 60 years of
age.
The money, which is a significant sum in areas where the average income is
about R5 (less than $1.00 US) a day, will also be given to families with only
one child to discourage couples with a daughter from trying again for a boy.
Some regions have gone further. In parts of Fujian province, local governments
have given housing grants of approximately R11000 ($1700 US) to couples with
two girls.
The state will expand welfare programmes so poor couples rely less on producing
a son to care for them in their old age. It will also push a "caring for
girls?propaganda campaign to counter the preference for boys.
But it is far from certain that the measures will be any more successful than
previous attempts to reverse the preference for boys.
Many families, particularly in rural areas, place greater value on sons, who
are considered best suited to continue the family line, generate income and
ensure that parents are cared for during their old age.
As a result, a disproportionate number of female fetuses are aborted and girls
are at greater risk than boys of being abandoned or sold.
Government policies have also contributed to the disparity, because rural
couples are given greater freedom to have a second child if the first is a
daughter.
Officials blame the imbalance on cultural rather than political factors. They
point out that other Asian nations, notably India and South Korea, have
experienced similar problems.
But China's demographic distortions have clearly worsened since the
introduction of the one-child policy. In 1982, the country's boy-girl ratio was
similar to the global average.
The consequences are already apparent. In rural areas such as Hainan Island,
there are reports of classrooms filled mostly with boys and orphanages filled
mainly with girls.
In the future, population planners fear the lack of brides will create social
tensions as men migrate and compete more fiercely for mates. Wife selling, baby
trafficking and prostitution are all expected to increase as the first
generation born under the one-child policy hits the normal marriage age.
Many of these problems predate the one-child policy, but they appear to be
getting worse.
According to the United Nations Children's Fund, about 250,000 people were
victims of trafficking in China in 2003.
In the latest case, Chinese police arrested 95 members of a gang in Inner
Mongolia accused of buying 76 babies to trade in other provinces.
Last year, police freed 42,000 kidnapped women and children, which they say is
only a fraction of the total traded.
Despite such problems, the government insists the one-child policy is
necessary. Since 1980, family-planning officials say the restrictions have
prevented 300-million births that would have otherwise overwhelmed an
overcrowded nation of 1.3-billion people.
The Chinese government is increasingly accepting free-market principles in the
business field, but state intervention continues to guide demographic policy.
Two laws have been passed banning gynecologists from telling pregnant women the
sex of a fetus once it is confirmed by ultrasound checks. But as doctors are
increasingly more dependent on private income, many accept payments to reveal
the gender and find an excuse for an abortion if it is a girl.
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