One-child policy
The Chinese government has made moves to relax its ‘one-child policy’, but human rights organisations have warned that this gesture is merely that – a gesture.
According to Reggie Littlejohn, president of organisations Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, Human Rights Without Frontiers and China Aid, the world should not be fooled. She (sic) said, ‘I rejoice for the families that may eventually be allowed a second child under this proposed pilot programme, but China has not relaxed, rescinded or overthrown its brutal one-child policy.
‘As an initial matter, this proposed modification is not for everyone, but only for couples in which at least one spouse is an only child’.
She pointed out that the policy was not just about population size, but rather that the policy is being enforced through forced abortion, forced sterilisation and infanticide. She said, ‘Even if some couples will eventually be allowed to have two children under this “pilot programme”, the Chinese communist party has emphatically not stated that there will be a cessation of these 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.’
