China Province Will Release Names of Forced Abortion Policy Violators
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 8, 2007
Beijing, China (LifeNews.com) — A Chinese official says fines are not enough when it comes to forcing its citizens to comply with the nation’s policy that couples can have only one child. A province in the Asian nation will begin shaming offenders by publicizing their names in the media and criticizing them for violating the laws.
Zhang Wenbiao, head of the family planning commission in Zhejiang province, announced the new policy Wednesday to expose the names of violators in a few cases.
Those who violate the one-child law can be fined as much as $6,000 but the amount has not deterred wealthier Chinese from flouting the policy.
Zhang says the policy has made a grater impact on poor couples, who resent that the rich get around the law. A survey published in the Communist Party daily China Youth Daily found that 68 percent of those polled found the situation unfair.
As a result, Zhang will begin publishing the names of those who have gotten around the law in an effort to shame them into obedience.
The one-child policy has come under international criticism because it has resulted in forced abortions and sterilizations and family planning officials have frequently jailed offenders and their families and used harassment and job threats to achieve population goals.
The nation has jailed Chen Guangcheng, a blind attorney who brought worldwide exposure to a campaign in the eastern city of Linyi that resulted in making more than 10,000 women undergo sterilizations and abortions.
The new policy comes at a time when China is seeing its male-female ratio worsening as its people use infanticide and sex-selection abortions to give birth to boy babies.
China currently has a male-female ratio of 119-100 while the number is closer to 103-100 in most industrialized nations. The figure is as high as 130-100 in some rural areas where a preference for boys is stronger to carry on the family name and work the family farm.
As a result of the gender imbalance, large numbers of Chinese man are finding it difficult to get married. The general imbalanced has also caused an increase in crime, selling of girl babies, prostitution and forcing women into sexual slavery or domestic positions.
Some girls are even sold or given away in order for Chinese families to have one son to comply with the family planning rules.
Chinese couples determined to have a son easily get around the new laws as a black market has sprung up of people with ultrasound machines in the trunks of cars or house closets are willing to divulge the sex of an unborn baby for a price.
China instituted the coercive family planning policy in 1979 and Chinese women and families have been the victims of an intense campaign ever since.
Ironically, China distributed ultrasound machines to local clinics on a wide scale after the coercive family planning policy was instituted to ensure women were not pregnant and violating the one-child program.
