China’s one-child policy slammed by rights activist

The president of a woman’s rights group appealed recently to the international community to stop international funding that supports China’s one child policy.

Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, said that China’s one-child policy is supported by international organizations including the United Nations Family Planning Fund, the International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International.

In her statement, Littlejohn said, “It doesn’t matter whether you are pro-life or pro-choice on this issue. No one can support forced abortion, because it is not a choice,” Asia News reported.

Littlejohn called for an end to such funding noting that the one child policy is implemented oftentimes through forced abortions and sterilizations, and has given rise to other types of crimes as offshoots of the policy, Asia News said.

Littlejohn said the one-child policy also leads to selective female foeticide and infanticide. The number of babies murdered in this way is a “hundred times worse than the Tiananmen massacre,” noting that the latter was done out in the open, whereas abortions are done in secret, according to Asia News.

Violations

Some of the violations committed against women who are “illegally pregnant” in China include “forced sterilization, forced abortion, arbitrary detention and other abuses,” Asia News said.

Littlejohn cited the findings of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China report, dated Oct. 10, 2010, which listed down violations against women that have been committed due to the one-child policy, according to Asia News.

She also recounted the experience of one woman who was dragged away, tied to a table and administered a forced abortion on her seven-month fetus. Other stories of brutalities caused by the one child policy are here.

Ripple effects

The policy also has ripple effects leading to other crimes and social problems. Three were cited by Littlejohn, namely:

Gendercide. Because there is a traditional preference for boys, there is a stronger tendency to abort if one is pregnant with a girl, or to be rid of her through infanticide or abandonment, because only one child is allowed per family, according to Asia News.

The one-child policy of China also causes a ripple effect on the global economy. Ling said in her statement, “Gender imbalances have been shown to significantly disrupt spending patterns, leading to significant trade imbalances that are detrimental to the global economy,” the AFP reported.

Ling said, “More and more economists are speaking up about China’s increase in private saving. The drop in Chinese marriages brings the drop in consumption, and until it changes, we will see little change in our trade and exchange rate with China.”

A male surplus population in China can also lead to social unrest and aggression, studies say. Ling told Life News, “It’s important for world leaders to see gendercide is not just a women’s rights issue, but it also leads to trade imbalance, insecurity and a threat to peace.”

Ling told Life News that there are currently 37 million more men than women in China, and said research shows that a large male youth population is also linked to increased violence and aggression. Crime in China has doubled in the last 20 years.

Ling also noted that the “systemic elimination of girls simply because they’re girls is a crime that has to be stopped,” Life News reported.

Sexual Slavery. The severe gender imbalance in China has also become a powerful force behind the rise in sexual slavery and the trafficking of women in nations that surround China, Asia News said.

All Girls Allowed stated that by 2020, China will have 40 million more young men than women. Dudley Poston, an expert in demographics from Texas A&M University, told AFP, “My research shows that the average surplus male in China is rural, unmarried, poor, unemployed and has little education. Few women desire such prospects as marriage partners.”

Poston, who is an adjunct professor at three Chinese universities, told AFP, “These males are going to remain unmarried. They’re going to live in bachelor ghettos in the big cities of China.” He added that such a social climate will lead to a huge market for commercial sex and “huge potential in China for an HIV epidemic.”

Female Suicide. The World Health Organization said in a report that the highest rate of female suicide in the world is found in China, at 500 a day. There are speculations that such a high rating may be related to the emotional trauma that may follow forced sterilization or forced abortion, Asia News said.