|
China population now 1.3 billion, officials tout forced-abortion policies
January 7, 2005
Beijing -- A baby boy born in China's capital city has inched the population of
the Asian country upward to 1.3 billion, the largest worldwide. Chinese
officials used the occasion to tout their coercive one-child population control
policies that involve forced abortions and human rights abuses.
According to the Xinhua News Agency, the official Chinese news agency, the baby
was born to a father who works for Air China airlines and a mother who is
employed by Shell China.
"I am the happiest guy in the world and my boy will be blessed all his life,''
the father, Zhang Tong, told Xinhua.
Chinese officials touted the controversial policy and said that the 1.3 billion
number would have been reached years ago if not for the coercive policy. The
government credits the policy with helping to stabilize the country's economy.
It said Chinese couples used to average 5.8 children and now have just 1.8
children.
But, to achieve those results, China has employed harsh policies that have
stripped Chinese citizens of their basic rights.
Yesterday, LifeNews.com reported on the case of Mao Hengfeng, a woman who has
been sentenced to 18 months in a labor prison camp for her fifteen years-long
battle with the Chinese government after she lost her job when she became
pregnant a second time.
She was also coerced into having an abortion after officials claimed she would
receive her old job as a result. Instead, she was jailed and has been beaten
and tortured
Just weeks after a Congressional committee held hearing on Mao Hengfeng's
forced imprisonment, a human rights watchdog group says the woman, who has
protested their population control policy, will remain in prison an additional
three months.
Michael Kozak, a State Department assistant secretary, said Mao's case
highlights the problems in the Chinese system: coercion of abortion or
sterilization, the use of forced labor camps, forced imprisonment, and the
improper use of psychiatric hospitals and torture.
The one-child policy has also led to a significant gender imbalance and a
shortage of younger Chinese who may not be able to support its elderly
citizens.
China continues to face a staggeringly abnormal male-female ratio as Chinese
families opt for abortions when ultrasounds reveal a girl baby.
Rural Chinese often kill newborn infant girls as men are preferred to work
farms and carry on the family line.
The one-child policy has contributed to the stark gender imbalance in China,
which, according to the 2000 census, was about 117 males to 100 females. For
sometimes illegal second births, the national ratio was about 152 to 100.
Such figures led China's Guizhou Province to prohibit some late-term abortions
and to stop ultrasounds from being used for gender identification for
nonmedical purposes in an attempt to stem the tide of sex-selection abortions.
The one child policy was imposed 30 years ago following a baby boom after World
War II.
Comment on this story,
click here.
Copyright 1999-2004, Asian Sex Gazette. All rights reserved. No
content may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission.
Please contact us via the link below for re-print and syndication policies.
|
|
China
moves to ban late term abortions
12-16-2004
|
