Jeremy Page in Delhi
Police in central India have found 390 body parts from foetuses and newborn babies — thought to be unwanted girls — buried in the backyard of a Christian missionary hospital.
Separately, the Government said that it was setting up a network of girls’ homes — dubbed the “cradle scheme” — in an effort to stop poor Indians from killing their daughters.
Both announcements threw a spotlight on female infanticide and foeticide in India, where an estimated ten million baby girls have been killed by their parents in the past twenty years.
Sex determination tests are illegal in India, but many parents — especially in rural areas — still bribe doctors to find out their child’s gender and to carry out an abortion if it is a girl.
Boys in India are traditionally regarded as future bread-winners whereas girls are considered a financial burden because their families must pay dowries to get them married.
Acting on a tip-off, police found the body parts on Saturday, some of them stuffed in plastic bags, buried behind the Mission Hospital in Ratlam, a town in the state of Madhya Pradesh.
They have seized hospital records, sent the body parts for forensic science tests and taken a hospital sweeper and two doctors into custody.
A group of angry neighbours attempted to gain entry to the hospital demanding that action be taken against senior managers but they were stopped by the police.
The discovery came almost two months after police found the remains of more than 20 women and children behind a house in an upmarket Delhi suburb.
The businessman who owns the house, and his domestic servant, have been arrested in that case and are reported to have confessed to raping and murdering the victims.
The businessman, Monindher Singh Pandher, who had no criminal record, is said to have links with state politicians.
Six police officers have been sacked, four senior officers suspended and the area police chief transferred for alleged criminal negligence in the case, amid complaints that they ignored reports of missing children.
The grisly find in Ratlam sparked rumours of a similar crime. However, police said it was more likely that the hospital had been illegally performing abortions and trying to dispose of the evidence.
“The question of female foeticide and infanticide is part of our investigation, as is illegal abortions,” said Satish Saxena, the local police superintendent.
Renuka Chowdhury, the Minister of State for Women and Child Development, called yesterday for emergency measures to stop female infanticide and foeticide.
Mrs Chowdhury said that emergency measures were necessary as evidence indicated that the practice of aborting or killing female children was spreading.
“It is a matter of international and national shame for us that India, with a growth of nine per cent, still kills its daughters,” she said.
The practice has also caused an alarming gender imbalance in India’s population, she said. The number of girls born per 1,000 boys born fell from 945 to 927 between 1991 and 2001, according to the latest Indian census figures. Many districts report as few as 800 girls for every 1,000 boys.
To try to correct the imbalance, Mrs Chowdhury said that the Government would adopt unwanted girls and raise them in a network of special homes.
“What we are saying to the people is have your children, don’t kill them. And if you don’t want a girl child, leave her to us,” she said.
The Government says that it is clamping down on doctors flouting the law that bans prenatal sex determination tests, and a national campaign with the slogan, “My strength, my Daughter”, was launched late last year to encourage more parents to protect their infant daughters.
However, social activists say that there are many loopholes which allow those who provide tests to remain free of presecution. Since the law was enacted only one doctor has been convicted of illegally aborting female foetuses.
Mrs Chowdhury did not say how much the scheme would cost but she said that money had been allocated in the next budget. The minister also said that she hoped the planned cradle centres would provide an opportunity for parents who had a change of heart to reclaim their children.
But activists said that the government proposal was absurd. They said that it would send the wrong message, and fail to reduce the number of abortions.
“Most of the girls are killed before birth, not after birth. So, where is the option of abandoning girls if they are not born at all?” said Sabu George, who has researched female foeticide for two decades.
He said that some girls abandoned under a similar scheme in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in the 1990s died at poorly staffed and supplied Government hospitals.
Toll of shame
50m: number of girls that Unicef estimates are ‘missing’ from Indian society
1.05: males to every female in India, reversing the world average
600: rupees now, save 50,000 rupees later” is the advertising slogan of diagnostic teams with ultrasound machines that predict the sex of the unborn child
£18,000: can be the price of a wedding and dowry. Girls are killed because of the financial burden they place on their families
9.6m: more boys aged between 0-14 than girls
1949: Year when Indian women were granted full suffrage
54: per cent turnout of women voters in 2004 election, 62 per cent among men
10m: number of female foetuses aborted since ultrasound scanning was first used 20 years ago
1994: Year when scanning to find out gender was made illegal. It is widely ignored
0: the number of cases that have come to court
24.9 median age for men and women
Sources: news agencies
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
FREE Human Rights Activist Chen Guangcheng
Chen Guangcheng is a blind activist in the People's Republic of China at the forefront of a growing civil rights movement who drew international attention to human rights issues in rural areas. Chen is currently serving an unmerited prison sentence of four years and three months after grossly unjust trials. He was sentenced for damaging property and blocking traffic, after he brought a class-action lawsuit against the local authorities in Linyi, Shandong province, for implementing a campaign of forced abortions and sterilizations, which allegedly affected thousands of local women.
Human rights advocates, including myself, believe Chen’s sentence is a politically motivated effort to prevent him from pursuing his peaceful human rights activities. Hence, we strongly advocate for his immediate and unconditional release from prison.
Catherine Baber, Deputy Asia Pacific Director at Amnesty International stated:
"We condemn utterly the sentence imposed on Chen Guangcheng and consider him a prisoner of conscience. Chen has been imprisoned solely because of his peaceful defence of human rights and he should be released immediately."
"The charges against Chen were politically motivated and the trial was grossly unfair from start to finish. Chen's lawyers were obstructed at every step of the way, from collecting evidence to representing him in court. By some accounts the trial lasted only two hours; and the courtroom was filled with official representatives preventing members of the public and most of Chen's relatives attending."
Chen was initially convicted in August 2006 during a swift two hour trial. Since his conviction, his defense attorney, supporters and even his family, have been subjected to harassment, beatings, and intimidation. He appealed his sentence, and to everyone’s astonishment the appeal court ordered a retrial. However, the retrial was unsuccessful because the appeal court refused to consider new evidence from key witnesses.
Chinese activists have expressed that the lengthy sentence reflected that officials are cracking down on human rights advocates who include a growing number of lawyers, academics and dissidents trying to expand citizens’ freedoms through litigation and internet campaigns for legal reform.
According to Chen’s wife, Yuan Weijing, Chen hasn’t eaten well for the past few months and has not received a decent meal since his transfer to the Linyi Prison. Chen also expressed that the prison applies a cruel system: where certain prisoners are empowered to governing other prisoners. Chen’s wife thinks he is being mistreated in prison and we are all very worried about his well-being. Time is of the essence, we most join together to advocate for his immediate release. Also we most continue to build awareness about the illegal practice of forced abortions and sterilizations against women being practiced in various regions of the world.
Petition:
Sign this petition http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/free-human-rights-activist-chen-guangcheng.html and take it upon yourself to learn, to discuss, and to advocate for what is right. Also build awareness about Chen’s unmerited imprisonment by purchasing a FREE CHEN t-shirt and items: http://www.cafepress.com/freechen
Resources for further advocacy and learning interest:
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Worldwide Appeal
CHINA: Prisoner of conscience sentenced
Please write Minister of Justice Aiying Wu Buzhang, to advocate for the calling for the immediate release of prisoner of conscience Chen Guangcheng.
Send letters to:
Minister of Justice Aiying Wu Buzhang
Sifabu
10 Chaoyangmen Nandajie
Chaoyangqu
Beijingshi 100020
China
Fax: +86 10 65292345
Email: minister@legalinfo.gov.cn or pfmaster@legalinfo.gov.cn (c/o Ministry of Communications)
Gendercide at Apocalyptic Levels - Experts
Published on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 by Inter Press Service by Zofeen Ebrahim
HYDERABAD, India - Experts at the 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights are painting an apocalyptical vision of the Asian region where 163 million women are ‘missing’ and the sex ratio continues to decline as a result of easy access to modern gender selection techniques.
China tops the list of countries with a skewed sex ratio at birth (SRB) with just 100 females for every 120 males. India follows going by the country’s 2001 census, which revealed that the SRB had fallen to 108 males per 100 females.
Experts worry that unless action is taken, Nepal and Vietnam may soon have skewed SRBs. Countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh are already beginning to follow Asia’s largest countries with people resorting to medical technology to do away with the girl child at the foetal stage.
“We place it (skewed SRB) in the context of discrimination against women,” said Purnima Mane, deputy executive director UNFPA, while addressing the press. “Women are not valued.” She predicted that a continuing unhealthy SRB trend could lead to increased violence, migration and trafficking as well as greater pressures on women.
“When there is no economic recognition to women’s work and no social value attached to this particular gender, when resource sharing remains inequitable, when women are paid less then it becomes easier to do away with this gender,” said Renuka Chowdhry, India’s junior minister for women and child development, at the inaugural of the Oct 29-31 conference.
She called for increased women’s political participation and a push for laws and legislations that empower them as remedy to the adverse sex ratio. ‘’Don’t mess with nature, otherwise it will lead to a mutation of society,” she warned.
But where have all the girls gone? The sobering answer to the unbalanced SRB, according to the latest series of studies commissioned by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), lies in modern gender determination and selective abortions.
French demographer Christophe Guilmoto, author of the UNFPA’s regional report ‘Sex ratio Imbalance in Asia,’ based on studies conducted in China, India, Nepal and Vietnam and presented at the conference, referred to it as ‘gendercide’ in which millions of parents resort to a variety of techniques to ensure male offspring. Choosing gender had become easy with the arrival of amniocentesis in the lae 1970s and later with ultrasound imaging technologies.
In 2005, the estimated overall sex ratio was 107.5 males per 100 females in India, as against 106.8 in China, 106.0 in Pakistan and 104.9 in Bangladesh — four countries that accounted for 43 percent of the world’s population in 2005.
The underlying reasons for the abnormal sex ratio in China, explained Baige Zhao, vice minister of that country’s National Population and Family Planning Commission, included the age-old bias for sons, a poor social security system in rural areas and a trend for smaller-sized families.
The draconian one-child policy imposed by China’s government at that time and the high cost of child rearing provided just the climate for abusing modern technology.
In India, discrimination against girls is more intense among urbanites and well-to-do families, while similar data from China indicate that sex selection appears more pronounced among peasants than among urban residents. In both India and China, education tends to be positively associated with discrimination against the girl child.
Perhaps that is why Gillian Greer, director-general at International Planned Parenthood Foundation, laid particular emphasis on “real investment in girls’ education” as a critical driver of development if they are to be saved from becoming “invisible and forgotten”.
Interestingly Pakistan — where abortion is illegal and unsafe abortions rampant — does not yet have a sex selection problem. “The fewer studies that have been carried out all point to the fact that sex selective abortion is very rare. This could be because we have not been deluged by technology as in other countries in the region,” explained Dr Yasmeen Sabeeh Qazi, country representative, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, Pakistan.
Pakistan also benefits from positive religious beliefs. ‘’One cannot ignore that such deeds (selective abortions) are considered sinful with great misfortune befalling those who commit such deeds. One of the commonest teachings of Prophet Mohammad, with which all Pakistanis are familiar, relates to not burying daughters alive (a practice in Arabia before the advent of Islam).”
The social ramifications of these private decisions will end up affecting everyone and a ‘masculinisation’ of Asia, predict specialists. There will be a vast army of surplus males causing a ‘marriage squeeze’ with the most underprivileged the worst off. With fewer women of marriageable age, men will have to delay marriage; it may also lead to a backlog of older unmarried men.
However, say experts, it is still not late to turn around the numbers. South Korea, after a period of 25-30 years, has brought back its SRB to normal levels through self-regulatory mechanisms and economic change. The South Korean government also contributed significantly to this.
The UNFPA study recommends keeping an eye on the private health sector which has played a major role in spreading gender selection technology, and a strict regulation of sex-determination procedures.
Many countries already have tight regulations. India started as early as 1983, followed by South Korea in 1987 and China in 1989. Nepal banned sex-selective abortions in 2002 when it liberalised its own law on abortions. But these laws have proved extremely difficult to enforce. India’s Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technology Act of 1994 prohibited both the use and advertising of gender determination techniques, but remains largely ignored. Reducing sex-ratio imbalances is better achieved through advocacy, sensitisation and awareness-raising programmes says the UNFPA report. “By targeting special groups, such as health personnel, young women and students,” people’s mindsets and attitudes towards girls can be changed.”
“The role of girls and women (in society) needs to be applauded,” suggested Guilmoto.
“Supporting girls or those families that only have girls can take many forms — direct subsidies at the time of birth, various scholarship programmes, gender-based quotas or financial incentives aimed at improving their economic situation,” UNFPA recommends in its report.
HYDERABAD, India - Experts at the 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights are painting an apocalyptical vision of the Asian region where 163 million women are ‘missing’ and the sex ratio continues to decline as a result of easy access to modern gender selection techniques.
China tops the list of countries with a skewed sex ratio at birth (SRB) with just 100 females for every 120 males. India follows going by the country’s 2001 census, which revealed that the SRB had fallen to 108 males per 100 females.
Experts worry that unless action is taken, Nepal and Vietnam may soon have skewed SRBs. Countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh are already beginning to follow Asia’s largest countries with people resorting to medical technology to do away with the girl child at the foetal stage.
“We place it (skewed SRB) in the context of discrimination against women,” said Purnima Mane, deputy executive director UNFPA, while addressing the press. “Women are not valued.” She predicted that a continuing unhealthy SRB trend could lead to increased violence, migration and trafficking as well as greater pressures on women.
“When there is no economic recognition to women’s work and no social value attached to this particular gender, when resource sharing remains inequitable, when women are paid less then it becomes easier to do away with this gender,” said Renuka Chowdhry, India’s junior minister for women and child development, at the inaugural of the Oct 29-31 conference.
She called for increased women’s political participation and a push for laws and legislations that empower them as remedy to the adverse sex ratio. ‘’Don’t mess with nature, otherwise it will lead to a mutation of society,” she warned.
But where have all the girls gone? The sobering answer to the unbalanced SRB, according to the latest series of studies commissioned by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), lies in modern gender determination and selective abortions.
French demographer Christophe Guilmoto, author of the UNFPA’s regional report ‘Sex ratio Imbalance in Asia,’ based on studies conducted in China, India, Nepal and Vietnam and presented at the conference, referred to it as ‘gendercide’ in which millions of parents resort to a variety of techniques to ensure male offspring. Choosing gender had become easy with the arrival of amniocentesis in the lae 1970s and later with ultrasound imaging technologies.
In 2005, the estimated overall sex ratio was 107.5 males per 100 females in India, as against 106.8 in China, 106.0 in Pakistan and 104.9 in Bangladesh — four countries that accounted for 43 percent of the world’s population in 2005.
The underlying reasons for the abnormal sex ratio in China, explained Baige Zhao, vice minister of that country’s National Population and Family Planning Commission, included the age-old bias for sons, a poor social security system in rural areas and a trend for smaller-sized families.
The draconian one-child policy imposed by China’s government at that time and the high cost of child rearing provided just the climate for abusing modern technology.
In India, discrimination against girls is more intense among urbanites and well-to-do families, while similar data from China indicate that sex selection appears more pronounced among peasants than among urban residents. In both India and China, education tends to be positively associated with discrimination against the girl child.
Perhaps that is why Gillian Greer, director-general at International Planned Parenthood Foundation, laid particular emphasis on “real investment in girls’ education” as a critical driver of development if they are to be saved from becoming “invisible and forgotten”.
Interestingly Pakistan — where abortion is illegal and unsafe abortions rampant — does not yet have a sex selection problem. “The fewer studies that have been carried out all point to the fact that sex selective abortion is very rare. This could be because we have not been deluged by technology as in other countries in the region,” explained Dr Yasmeen Sabeeh Qazi, country representative, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, Pakistan.
Pakistan also benefits from positive religious beliefs. ‘’One cannot ignore that such deeds (selective abortions) are considered sinful with great misfortune befalling those who commit such deeds. One of the commonest teachings of Prophet Mohammad, with which all Pakistanis are familiar, relates to not burying daughters alive (a practice in Arabia before the advent of Islam).”
The social ramifications of these private decisions will end up affecting everyone and a ‘masculinisation’ of Asia, predict specialists. There will be a vast army of surplus males causing a ‘marriage squeeze’ with the most underprivileged the worst off. With fewer women of marriageable age, men will have to delay marriage; it may also lead to a backlog of older unmarried men.
However, say experts, it is still not late to turn around the numbers. South Korea, after a period of 25-30 years, has brought back its SRB to normal levels through self-regulatory mechanisms and economic change. The South Korean government also contributed significantly to this.
The UNFPA study recommends keeping an eye on the private health sector which has played a major role in spreading gender selection technology, and a strict regulation of sex-determination procedures.
Many countries already have tight regulations. India started as early as 1983, followed by South Korea in 1987 and China in 1989. Nepal banned sex-selective abortions in 2002 when it liberalised its own law on abortions. But these laws have proved extremely difficult to enforce. India’s Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Technology Act of 1994 prohibited both the use and advertising of gender determination techniques, but remains largely ignored. Reducing sex-ratio imbalances is better achieved through advocacy, sensitisation and awareness-raising programmes says the UNFPA report. “By targeting special groups, such as health personnel, young women and students,” people’s mindsets and attitudes towards girls can be changed.”
“The role of girls and women (in society) needs to be applauded,” suggested Guilmoto.
“Supporting girls or those families that only have girls can take many forms — direct subsidies at the time of birth, various scholarship programmes, gender-based quotas or financial incentives aimed at improving their economic situation,” UNFPA recommends in its report.
The 20th Century's Hidden Holocaust... A Worse Human Tragedy than Bosnia...?
In some ways, yes - in today's China. Perhaps 15 million female babies have 'gone missing' since China's 'one child policy' was introduced in 1979. A group of American charity fund-raisers with concealed cameras has uncovered 'silent slaughter' on a massive scale - in China's 'dying rooms'. The following are excerpts from 'The Dying Rooms' by Tom Hilditch, in the HK Sunday Morning Post Magazine, June 25, 1995, pp. 16-20: 'The aim of the documentary team, funded by Britain's Channel Four, was to explore persistent reports that some state-run Chinese orphanages leave baby girls to die of starvation and neglect... [Two years ago an investigation by SMP Magazine uncovered evidence in one orphanage] 'in Guangxi province... It was freely admitted [by staff and regular visitors] that 90 per cent of the 50 to 60 baby girls who arrived in the orphanage each month would end their lives there. 'The birth of a baby girl has never been a cause for celebration in China. In general, an infant boy will be greeted with firework displays and parties, a girl with silence. According to records there are currently six million women in China named Lai Di. The name means "a son follows quickly." '...Stories of peasant farmers drowning new-born girls in a bucket of water have been commonplace for centuries. Now, however, as a direct result of the one-child policy there are growing reports of infanticide all across China, including its towns and cities... [In China] 'a child is born every 1.5 seconds, 2,400 every hour, 21 million a year. In March 1995 President Jiang Zemin was forced to set new, tougher population controls and tougher punishments for those who ignore them. Couples who attempt to have more than one child will be dealt with brutally... 'Coerced abortions, sometimes just days before the baby is due, are now commonplace... 'In one orphanage... the infant inmates sit in bamboo benches in the middle of a courtyard. Their wrists and ankles are tied to the armrests and legs of the bench. They have been there all day unable to move. A row of plastic buckets is lined up beneath holes in their seats to catch their urine and excrement. The children will not be moved again until night when their benches will be carried back into their cot room and they will be lifted out and tied to their beds... 'They had no stimulation, nothing to play with, no one else to touch them. They have never known affection...' And so on. I have a friend who has visited one of these places. Children there are left without any clothing below the waist, in freezing temperatures. A mentally ill child was found sitting naked in a room in the freezing cold. My friend was allowed to hold a few babies while they died... Shalom! Rowland Croucher
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Two years ago, the Sunday Morning Post reported on the outrage of healthy baby girls left to die in China's orphanages, victims of the one-child policy. Now, as a British documentary team has discovered, the problem is getting worse. TOM HILDITCH reports. MEI-MING has lain this way for 10 days now: tied up in urine-soaked blankets, scabs of dried mucus growing across her eyes, her face shrinking to a skull, malnutrition slowly shrivelling her two-year-old body. Each morning a fellow inmate at her Guangdong orphanage goes into the dark fetid room where she lies alone to see if she is dead. The orphanage staff, paid to look after her, do not visit. They call her room the "dying room" and they have abandoned her there for the same reason her parents abandoned her shortly after she was born. Her problem is simple and tragic: she has a condition which in modern China makes her next to useless, a burden on the state with an almost zero chance of adoption. She is a girl. When she dies in four days later it will not be of some terminal, incurable illness. It will be of sheer neglect. Afterwards the orphanage will dispose of her desiccated corpse and deny she ever existed. She will be just another invisible victim of the collision between China's one-child policy and its traditional preference for male heirs. The name the orphanage gave her articulates precisely the futility of struggle to survive in a society that holds no value for her. In Putonghua, Mei-ming means 'no name'. She is one of perhaps 15 million female babies who have gone missing from China's demographics since the one child per family policy was introduced in 1979. Another tiny bag of bones in what some sinologists claim is the 20th century's hidden holocaust. Yet her brief and miserable life may not have been in vain. Before she died she was discovered by a British documentary team who entered her orphanage posing as American charity fund-raisers. The footage they shot, through a concealed camera, would provide the first video evidence of the existence of dying rooms. And when their documentary was shown 13 days ago, against the protestations of China's London embassy, little Mei-ming's dying cries for help were heard around the world. The aim of the documentary team, funded by Britain's Channel Four, was to explore persistent reports that some state-run Chinese orphanages leave baby girls to die of starvation and neglect. Their starting point was the Sunday Morning Post's award-winning investigation of two years ago which gave the world the first eye-witness and photographic evidence of dying rooms at Nanning orphanage, in Guangxi province. Then the dying room was spoken of openly by staff and regular visitors. It was freely admitted that 90 per cent of the 50 to 60 baby girls who arrived at the orphanage each month would end their lives there. Since the outrage provoked by our report, however, Nanning orphanage has been overhauled. Money raised by Hong Kong celebrities has upgraded facilities and the quality of care. The dying rooms there have ceased to exist. Sadly, after touring and filming in orphanages in four provinces, the British documentary team's harrowing report suggests that the attitudes towards baby girls so prevalent at Nanning two years ago are rife elsewhere. The birth of a baby girl has never been a cause for celebration in China. In general, an infant boy will be greeted with firework displays and parties; a girl with silence. According to records there are currently six million women in China christened Lai Di. The name means "a son follows quickly". Tradition dictates that when a daughter marries she will join her husband's family, her children will take his family name and she must support his parents in their old age. In rural areas, female infants are simply a drain on resources. They are referred to as "maggots in the rice". Stories of peasant farmers drowning new-born girls in a bucket of water have been commonplace for centuries. Now, however, as a direct result of the one-child policy there are growing reports of infanticide all across China, including its towns and cities. The numbers of baby girls being abandoned, aborted or dumped on orphanage steps is unprecedented. It is impossible to understate both how crucial the one-child policy is to China's stability and how rigidly it is enforced. Everyone - the World Bank, the United Nations, China's own statisticians - agrees that if the population, already at 1.2 billion, is allowed to grow, China will be unable to support itself, let alone develop. The result would be economic collapse, environmental ruin, famine. But while most Chinese can accept the mathematics of the problem, many cannot accept the draconian mechanics of the solution. The population continues to rise. A child is born every 1.5 seconds, 2,400 every hour, 21 million a year. In March 1995 President Jiang Zemin was forced to set new, tougher population controls and tougher punishments for those who ignore them. Couples who attempt to have more than one child will be dealt with brutally. According to Steven Mosher, the author of A Mother's Ordeal, coerced abortions, sometimes just days before the baby is due, are now commonplace. As are reports of enforced sterilisation and of hospitals fatally injecting second babies shortly after their birth. "It means tremendous coercion," he says, "on women to submit to abortion and sterilisation. It also means that however overcrowded China's orphanages are now with baby girls, the problem is going to get worse. Very much worse." For Kate Blewett, producer of the Channel Four documentary The Dying Rooms, the investigation was a journey into the heart of darkness. "I did not know that human beings could treat children with such contempt, such cruelty. It is not so much a problem of the orphanages being underfunded as it is a problem of attitude towards unwanted babies. Some of the orphanages we visited were little more than death camps. We filmed treatment that amounted to torture, conscious neglect that amounted to murder." Travelling in China with hidden cameras and under false pretences meant Blewett and her team were in danger of being arrested every step of the way. The risk for local Chinese who helped them gain access to orphanages and those she interviewed, unwittingly or otherwise, was even greater. For that reason the documentary does not name any of the orphanages or identify mainland interviewees. Nonetheless, the harrowing squalor of conditions is there for all to see. In one orphanage a dozen or so baby girls are supervised by an adolescent girl in a white coat. As the team walk in she ignores them and goes out of the room, leaving a mentally handicapped child to show them around. The infant inmates sit in bamboo benches in the middle of a courtyard. Their wrists and ankles are tied to the armrests and legs of the bench. They have been there all day unable to move. A row of plastic buckets is lined up beneath holes in their seats to catch their urine and excrement. The children will not be moved again until night when their benches will be carried back into their cot room and they will be lifted out and tied to their beds. "It was heart-breaking," said Blewett. "They had no stimulation, nothing to play with, no one to touch them. They have never known affection. In one scene shown in the documentary one of the handicapped older boys walks up to one of the girls tied to a bench and begins head-butting her. He butts her relentlessly. It goes on and on. But the girl doesn't move or make a sound. Such is the lack of stimulation for the children that the one thing they all have in common is an endless rocking. They sit tied to their potty chairs rocking backwards and forwards and screaming. Few of them will ever learn to speak and the rocking is the only exercise, the only stimulation, the only pleasure in their lives." Presently the teenager in the white coat returns with an official of the orphanage. He buys Blewett's cover story and, seduced by the suggestion of foreign funds, he agrees to by interviewed. His monologue is chilling. Last year, he says, the orphanage had some 400 inmates. They were all kept five to a bed in one airless room. The summer temperatures soared above 37 degrees Celsius. Disease swept throught the room. In a couple of weeks 20 per cent of the babies died. Later, Blewett trains her camera on another of the assistants. "If 80 children died last summer, there should be 320 left," Blewett says, "but there don't appear to be more than a couple of dozen children here. Where are the others?" "They disappear," the girl replies. "If I ask where they go, I am just told they die. That's all. I am afraid to ask any more." Brutal neglect is the common theme of many of the orphanage scenes. In one sequence a lame child sits on a bench near the orphanage pharmacy. It is stocked full of medicines but none of the staff can be bothered to administer them. The child rocks listlessly back and forth as staff wander. The camera focuses on her vacant face, trails down her skinny body and settles on her leg... it is swollen with gangrene. Such institutionalised cruelty and neglect was in no way limited to rural areas. The worst orphanage, the brief home of Mei-ming, was in Guangdong, one of the richest provinces in China. When they arrived the documentary makers wondered at first whether they had made a mistake. There were no children to be seen or heard. Then from under one of the blankets laid over a cot, as if left to dry out, there was the sound of crying. Lifting the blanket and unwrapping a tied bundle of cloth, Blewett found a baby girl. The last layer of her swaddling was a plastic bag filled with urine and faeces. The next cot was the same, and the next and the next. Many of the children had deep lesions where the string they were tied with had cut into their bodies. One child, described by staff as "normal", was suffering from vitamin B and C deficiency, acute liver failure and severe impetigo on her scalp. As always, Blewett made a point of checking the babies' gender. As always, all the non-handicapped children were girls. The Chinese Government was approached several times both in Beijing and at its London embassy to provide comment or an interview for inclusion in the film. The Government was given a three-month deadline but remained silent. Then it was given a 10-day extension. On the ninth day Channel Four received a two-page letter from the London embassy. It became the final sequence of the film. "The so-called 'dying rooms' do not exist in China at all", read the statement's penultimate paragraph. "Our investigations confirm that those reports are vicious fabrications made out of ulterior motives. The contemptible lie about China's welfare work in orphanages cannot but arouse the indignation of the Chinese people, especially the great numbers of social workers who are working hard for children's welfare." The statement was followed by diplomatic representations to have the station drop the documentary. Channel Four refused. The programme which was transmitted on June 12 and dedicated to Mei-ming created enormous publicity. The following day questions were raised in the House of Commons about China's one-child policy and its dying rooms. Efforts are now being made by, among others, MP Anne Winterton, to bring about diplomatic pressure to halt China's one-child policy. Predictably, however, no one has raised the subject of providing massive aid for a collapsed and famine-ridden China in the event of its population rising to, say, 2.4 billion if this generation is allowed to have two children per family. More practically, however, Blewett and her team have set up a fund, The Dying Rooms Trust, to make contributions to international charities working with Chinese orphanages, to help purchase and distribute milk powder, play-pens and basic medicines to the orphanages featured in the documentary and establish sponsorship systems for their inmates. "We don't want to criticise the one-child policy," says Blewett. "But we do want to focus on the problems it is causing which can be solved." The documentary features a tour of a privately-run, locally funded orphanage where the children are happy, healthy and loved. "We were very keen to show what can be done with the right attitude," said Blewett. "No child should suffer the kind of neglect we filmed. Maybe we can help that happen. Maybe then, Mei-ming's life might have had some purpose." The programme is unlikely to be shown in Hong Kong.
For more information contact: The Dying Room Trust, 68 Thames Road, London W4 3RE. Cheques should be made payable to The Dying Rooms. Sunday Morning Post Magazine, June 25, 1995.
© John Mark Ministries. Articles may be reproduced in any medium, without applying for permission
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two years ago, the Sunday Morning Post reported on the outrage of healthy baby girls left to die in China's orphanages, victims of the one-child policy. Now, as a British documentary team has discovered, the problem is getting worse. TOM HILDITCH reports. MEI-MING has lain this way for 10 days now: tied up in urine-soaked blankets, scabs of dried mucus growing across her eyes, her face shrinking to a skull, malnutrition slowly shrivelling her two-year-old body. Each morning a fellow inmate at her Guangdong orphanage goes into the dark fetid room where she lies alone to see if she is dead. The orphanage staff, paid to look after her, do not visit. They call her room the "dying room" and they have abandoned her there for the same reason her parents abandoned her shortly after she was born. Her problem is simple and tragic: she has a condition which in modern China makes her next to useless, a burden on the state with an almost zero chance of adoption. She is a girl. When she dies in four days later it will not be of some terminal, incurable illness. It will be of sheer neglect. Afterwards the orphanage will dispose of her desiccated corpse and deny she ever existed. She will be just another invisible victim of the collision between China's one-child policy and its traditional preference for male heirs. The name the orphanage gave her articulates precisely the futility of struggle to survive in a society that holds no value for her. In Putonghua, Mei-ming means 'no name'. She is one of perhaps 15 million female babies who have gone missing from China's demographics since the one child per family policy was introduced in 1979. Another tiny bag of bones in what some sinologists claim is the 20th century's hidden holocaust. Yet her brief and miserable life may not have been in vain. Before she died she was discovered by a British documentary team who entered her orphanage posing as American charity fund-raisers. The footage they shot, through a concealed camera, would provide the first video evidence of the existence of dying rooms. And when their documentary was shown 13 days ago, against the protestations of China's London embassy, little Mei-ming's dying cries for help were heard around the world. The aim of the documentary team, funded by Britain's Channel Four, was to explore persistent reports that some state-run Chinese orphanages leave baby girls to die of starvation and neglect. Their starting point was the Sunday Morning Post's award-winning investigation of two years ago which gave the world the first eye-witness and photographic evidence of dying rooms at Nanning orphanage, in Guangxi province. Then the dying room was spoken of openly by staff and regular visitors. It was freely admitted that 90 per cent of the 50 to 60 baby girls who arrived at the orphanage each month would end their lives there. Since the outrage provoked by our report, however, Nanning orphanage has been overhauled. Money raised by Hong Kong celebrities has upgraded facilities and the quality of care. The dying rooms there have ceased to exist. Sadly, after touring and filming in orphanages in four provinces, the British documentary team's harrowing report suggests that the attitudes towards baby girls so prevalent at Nanning two years ago are rife elsewhere. The birth of a baby girl has never been a cause for celebration in China. In general, an infant boy will be greeted with firework displays and parties; a girl with silence. According to records there are currently six million women in China christened Lai Di. The name means "a son follows quickly". Tradition dictates that when a daughter marries she will join her husband's family, her children will take his family name and she must support his parents in their old age. In rural areas, female infants are simply a drain on resources. They are referred to as "maggots in the rice". Stories of peasant farmers drowning new-born girls in a bucket of water have been commonplace for centuries. Now, however, as a direct result of the one-child policy there are growing reports of infanticide all across China, including its towns and cities. The numbers of baby girls being abandoned, aborted or dumped on orphanage steps is unprecedented. It is impossible to understate both how crucial the one-child policy is to China's stability and how rigidly it is enforced. Everyone - the World Bank, the United Nations, China's own statisticians - agrees that if the population, already at 1.2 billion, is allowed to grow, China will be unable to support itself, let alone develop. The result would be economic collapse, environmental ruin, famine. But while most Chinese can accept the mathematics of the problem, many cannot accept the draconian mechanics of the solution. The population continues to rise. A child is born every 1.5 seconds, 2,400 every hour, 21 million a year. In March 1995 President Jiang Zemin was forced to set new, tougher population controls and tougher punishments for those who ignore them. Couples who attempt to have more than one child will be dealt with brutally. According to Steven Mosher, the author of A Mother's Ordeal, coerced abortions, sometimes just days before the baby is due, are now commonplace. As are reports of enforced sterilisation and of hospitals fatally injecting second babies shortly after their birth. "It means tremendous coercion," he says, "on women to submit to abortion and sterilisation. It also means that however overcrowded China's orphanages are now with baby girls, the problem is going to get worse. Very much worse." For Kate Blewett, producer of the Channel Four documentary The Dying Rooms, the investigation was a journey into the heart of darkness. "I did not know that human beings could treat children with such contempt, such cruelty. It is not so much a problem of the orphanages being underfunded as it is a problem of attitude towards unwanted babies. Some of the orphanages we visited were little more than death camps. We filmed treatment that amounted to torture, conscious neglect that amounted to murder." Travelling in China with hidden cameras and under false pretences meant Blewett and her team were in danger of being arrested every step of the way. The risk for local Chinese who helped them gain access to orphanages and those she interviewed, unwittingly or otherwise, was even greater. For that reason the documentary does not name any of the orphanages or identify mainland interviewees. Nonetheless, the harrowing squalor of conditions is there for all to see. In one orphanage a dozen or so baby girls are supervised by an adolescent girl in a white coat. As the team walk in she ignores them and goes out of the room, leaving a mentally handicapped child to show them around. The infant inmates sit in bamboo benches in the middle of a courtyard. Their wrists and ankles are tied to the armrests and legs of the bench. They have been there all day unable to move. A row of plastic buckets is lined up beneath holes in their seats to catch their urine and excrement. The children will not be moved again until night when their benches will be carried back into their cot room and they will be lifted out and tied to their beds. "It was heart-breaking," said Blewett. "They had no stimulation, nothing to play with, no one to touch them. They have never known affection. In one scene shown in the documentary one of the handicapped older boys walks up to one of the girls tied to a bench and begins head-butting her. He butts her relentlessly. It goes on and on. But the girl doesn't move or make a sound. Such is the lack of stimulation for the children that the one thing they all have in common is an endless rocking. They sit tied to their potty chairs rocking backwards and forwards and screaming. Few of them will ever learn to speak and the rocking is the only exercise, the only stimulation, the only pleasure in their lives." Presently the teenager in the white coat returns with an official of the orphanage. He buys Blewett's cover story and, seduced by the suggestion of foreign funds, he agrees to by interviewed. His monologue is chilling. Last year, he says, the orphanage had some 400 inmates. They were all kept five to a bed in one airless room. The summer temperatures soared above 37 degrees Celsius. Disease swept throught the room. In a couple of weeks 20 per cent of the babies died. Later, Blewett trains her camera on another of the assistants. "If 80 children died last summer, there should be 320 left," Blewett says, "but there don't appear to be more than a couple of dozen children here. Where are the others?" "They disappear," the girl replies. "If I ask where they go, I am just told they die. That's all. I am afraid to ask any more." Brutal neglect is the common theme of many of the orphanage scenes. In one sequence a lame child sits on a bench near the orphanage pharmacy. It is stocked full of medicines but none of the staff can be bothered to administer them. The child rocks listlessly back and forth as staff wander. The camera focuses on her vacant face, trails down her skinny body and settles on her leg... it is swollen with gangrene. Such institutionalised cruelty and neglect was in no way limited to rural areas. The worst orphanage, the brief home of Mei-ming, was in Guangdong, one of the richest provinces in China. When they arrived the documentary makers wondered at first whether they had made a mistake. There were no children to be seen or heard. Then from under one of the blankets laid over a cot, as if left to dry out, there was the sound of crying. Lifting the blanket and unwrapping a tied bundle of cloth, Blewett found a baby girl. The last layer of her swaddling was a plastic bag filled with urine and faeces. The next cot was the same, and the next and the next. Many of the children had deep lesions where the string they were tied with had cut into their bodies. One child, described by staff as "normal", was suffering from vitamin B and C deficiency, acute liver failure and severe impetigo on her scalp. As always, Blewett made a point of checking the babies' gender. As always, all the non-handicapped children were girls. The Chinese Government was approached several times both in Beijing and at its London embassy to provide comment or an interview for inclusion in the film. The Government was given a three-month deadline but remained silent. Then it was given a 10-day extension. On the ninth day Channel Four received a two-page letter from the London embassy. It became the final sequence of the film. "The so-called 'dying rooms' do not exist in China at all", read the statement's penultimate paragraph. "Our investigations confirm that those reports are vicious fabrications made out of ulterior motives. The contemptible lie about China's welfare work in orphanages cannot but arouse the indignation of the Chinese people, especially the great numbers of social workers who are working hard for children's welfare." The statement was followed by diplomatic representations to have the station drop the documentary. Channel Four refused. The programme which was transmitted on June 12 and dedicated to Mei-ming created enormous publicity. The following day questions were raised in the House of Commons about China's one-child policy and its dying rooms. Efforts are now being made by, among others, MP Anne Winterton, to bring about diplomatic pressure to halt China's one-child policy. Predictably, however, no one has raised the subject of providing massive aid for a collapsed and famine-ridden China in the event of its population rising to, say, 2.4 billion if this generation is allowed to have two children per family. More practically, however, Blewett and her team have set up a fund, The Dying Rooms Trust, to make contributions to international charities working with Chinese orphanages, to help purchase and distribute milk powder, play-pens and basic medicines to the orphanages featured in the documentary and establish sponsorship systems for their inmates. "We don't want to criticise the one-child policy," says Blewett. "But we do want to focus on the problems it is causing which can be solved." The documentary features a tour of a privately-run, locally funded orphanage where the children are happy, healthy and loved. "We were very keen to show what can be done with the right attitude," said Blewett. "No child should suffer the kind of neglect we filmed. Maybe we can help that happen. Maybe then, Mei-ming's life might have had some purpose." The programme is unlikely to be shown in Hong Kong.
For more information contact: The Dying Room Trust, 68 Thames Road, London W4 3RE. Cheques should be made payable to The Dying Rooms. Sunday Morning Post Magazine, June 25, 1995.
© John Mark Ministries. Articles may be reproduced in any medium, without applying for permission
Many women victim of 'gendercide,' study finds
Many women victim of 'gendercide,' study finds
By Larry Fine
November 17, 2005 - (Reuters) There is a shortfall of some 200 million women in the world -- "missing' due to what a three-year study on violence against women calls "gendercide." The number of what the study describes as 'missing' women is based on the random birthrate of males and females and how many fewer women there are than what would be expected in the world population, said Theodor Winkler, head of a research center that directed the project. Winkler told a news conference at the United Nations on Thursday that gender-related abortions and infanticides were the leading causes for the shortfall in the female population. Another factor was domestic violence, including so-called honor killings in some cultures.
"We are confronted with the slaughter of Eve, a systematic gendercide of tragic proportions," Winkler wrote in the preface to the study, recently published as a book titled "Women in an Insecure World." "There are dozens of ways women come to a grisly end," Winkler told U.N. reporters. "Obviously, human rights and the legal protection of women is of crucial importance but it is only one component. There is also a cultural change that must operate." Winkler said violence against women was the fourth-leading cause of premature death on the planet, ranking behind only disease, hunger and war. "It starts in the womb. There are societies where male births are preferred, particularly if the number of births are limited. That's where abortion for gender reasons starts," he said.
The book uses U.N., World Heath Organization and government reports and photographs to examine the plight of women. It details statistics on rape, violence traced to forced marriages, prostitution and sex slavery. The book says that according to a study based on 50 surveys from around the world, "at least one out of every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime." At least 700,000 women are sold into prostitution annually, the book added. "The deeply rooted phenomenon of the violence against women is one of the great crimes of humanity. We cannot close our eyes to it and hope it simply goes away," Winkler said.
The book was produced by a committee formed by the Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces to be distributed to governments, academics and health practitioners.
___________________________________________________________________________________
[110th CONGRESS House Bills]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: hc220ih.txt]
[Introduced in House]
110th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 220
Concerning the response of the United States to forced abortion and the
coercive one-child policy in the People's Republic of China, and the
resulting ``gendercide'' of girls in that country.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 27, 2007
Mr. Smith of New Jersey submitted the following concurrent resolution;
which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Concerning the response of the United States to forced abortion and the
coercive one-child policy in the People's Republic of China, and the
resulting ``gendercide'' of girls in that country.
Whereas since the 1980s the Government of the People's Republic of China (PRC)
has enforced a general one-child policy, which limits most women to
bearing one child, though some women in rural areas are permitted to
bear a second child, particularly if their first child is female;
Whereas the PRC Government coerces compliance with this policy by pervasive
propaganda, mandatory monitoring of women's reproductive cycles,
mandatory contraception, mandatory birth permits, mandatory
sterilization or contraceptive implantation, and government control of
birth spacing;
Whereas the PRC Government coerces compliance with this policy by punishing
failure to comply and refusal to abort ``out-of-plan'' children with
fines (called ``social compensation fees'') which often range from
roughly one-half to ten times the average Chinese annual income;
Whereas the PRC Government coerces compliance with this policy and pressures
women to abort ``out-of-plan'' children by means of job loss, group
punishments (imposing penalties or denying benefits to entire villages,
factories, and work units in the event of a single ``out-of-plan''
birth), and beating and abducting relatives of women who are pregnant
``out-of-plan'', so that they are socially ostracized and put under
social pressure to have an abortion;
Whereas the PRC Government physically destroys the homes of some of those who do
not pay social compensation fees;
Whereas the PRC Government creates an atmosphere of fear in which most Chinese
women feel they have little choice to comply with the Government's
draconian birth-limitation policy;
Whereas as recently as May 2007 it was credibly reported by the New York Times
and the Washington Post that the PRC Government ordered a crackdown on
population quotas and ``out-of-plan'' births in Guangxi province, that
Guangxi family planning officials conducted a campaign of violence in
detaining citizens, searching homes, confiscating valuables, and
destroying homes, and that this campaign provoked riots in which
thousands of citizens in eight townships fought with riot police,
overturned official vehicles, and damaged government offices, and that
several officials were killed in these riots;
Whereas the PRC Government has passed legislation that makes it illegal to force
women to have abortions;
Whereas at least 7 PRC provinces require abortion of children whose birth would
violate provincial regulations, while at least 10 PRC provinces require
unspecified ``remedial measures'';
Whereas many Congressional hearings and reports in leading newspapers and
newsmagazines throughout the world have established that PRC officials
charged with implementing the one-child policy frequently violate PRC
law by physically coercing abortions;
Whereas the PRC Government encourages its officials' illegal coercion of
abortions and sterilizations by making the promotions and bonuses of
local officials depend on meeting population targets, and by failing to
punish officials who physically coerce abortions;
Whereas PRC officials have punished citizens, including legal advocate Chen
Guangcheng, who have publicized population planning abuses by local
officials;
Whereas the PRC's policy of coercive birth limitation has caused Chinese
couples, many of whom have a cultural preference for sons, to abort or
abandon female infants so that they may try later to have a son,
resulting in a male to female birth ratio for first births of 121 to 100
and a male to female birth ratio for second births of 152 to 100,
according to official PRC figures;
Whereas the male to female birth ratio has been growing steadily wider since the
1980s, according to official PRC figures;
Whereas the ``gendercide'' caused by the PRC's policies has already created a
generation of young men of whom tens of millions will not be able to
find wives, due to the tens of millions of missing women;
Whereas the coercive birth limitation, in limiting most couples to one child,
has created generations of young people, few of whom know what it is to
have brothers or sisters, or aunts or uncles, and the cultural impact on
the PRC of this historically unprecedented situation is unknown;
Whereas in June 2006 the PRC's National People's Congress withdrew a proposed
law that would have criminalized sex-selective abortion;
Whereas the Population and Family Planning Law of the PRC contravenes standards
set by the 1995 Beijing Declaration and the 1994 Programme of Action of
the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development, to
which the PRC is a signatory, by limiting the number of children that
married women may bear and by banning unmarried women from bearing any
children;
Whereas the PRC Government contravenes standards set by the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant of Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights, to which the PRC is a signatory, by
discriminating against ``out-of-plan'' children by denying them basic
health care, education, and the right to marry;
Whereas the PRC Government contravenes the 1994 Programme of Action of the Cairo
International Conference on Population and Development, to which the PRC
is a signatory, by setting population targets;
Whereas the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child proclaims that
the child ``needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate
legal protection, before as well as after birth'';
Whereas since 1979 the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has been involved
in supporting, promoting, and facilitating the PRC's oppressive one-
child program;
Whereas Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush have
determined that UNFPA supports the PRC Government's program of coercive
abortion or involuntary sterilization;
Whereas UNFPA support for the PRC Government's program of coerced abortion and
involuntary sterilization violates the ``Kemp-Kasten'' provision of
United States law;
Whereas former UNFPA Representative in Beijing, Sven Burmester, has said that,
``China has had the most successful family planning policy in the
history of mankind in terms of quantity and with that, China has done
mankind a favor'';
Whereas former UNFPA Executive Director, Nafis Sadik, has said, ``I have had the
honor of being associated with China's reproductive health and family
planning programme for more than two decades. I was instrumental in
initiating UNFPA's cooperation with China in 1979 ... I also feel proud
that UNFPA made the wise decision to resist external pressures and
continued its fruitful cooperation with China.'', and moreover claimed
that, ``the implementation of the policy [in China] and the acceptance
of the policy is purely voluntary. There is no such thing as, you know,
a license to have a birth and so on.'';
Whereas UNFPA Executive Director Sadik also said, ``China has every reason to
feel proud of and pleased with its remarkable achievements made in its
family planning policy. The country could offer its experiences and
special expertise to help other countries,'' adding that the ``UNFPA is
going to employ some of [China]'s family planning experts to work in
other countries and popularize China's experiences in population growth
control and family planning''; and
Whereas paragraph 31 of the UNFPA Country Program Document for China, issued on
October 10, 2005, states that the UNFPA will seek to ``enhance the role
of China in the international arena, including through greater South-
South collaboration'' and to ``seek to strengthen the capacity for
South-South Collaboration in the areas of reproductive health, ageing,
gender and HIV/AIDS'', thereby indicating its plans to assist the PRC
Government in exporting its population planning program to other
countries: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),
That Congress--
(1) strongly condemns the continued violations of human
rights by the Government of the People's Republic of China
(PRC), including--
(A) the limitation of the number of children a
woman may bear, as well as the intrusive system that
supports this limitation, which includes setting
population targets, mandatory monitoring of women's
reproductive cycles, requiring that women obtain
``birth permits'', and government control of birth
spacing;
(B) coercing compliance with its birth limitations
through job loss, social ostracization, fines, and the
creation of an atmosphere of fear; and
(C) violent enforcement of its birth limitations
through policies that encourage officials to physically
force women to have abortions and to be sterilized, to
destroy homes, to beat and abduct the relatives and
friends of women pregnant ``out-of-plan,'' and the
punishment of those who publicize such abuses;
(2) urges the PRC Government to cease these policies, which
have led to the social catastrophe of ``gendercide'';
(3) urges the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to
cease all its activities in the PRC and to withdraw from that
country;
(4) affirms certain internationally recognized human
rights, including--
(A) the right of women to bear children
unconstrained by government policies which would limit
the number of children they bear or prevent them from
bearing children; and
(B) the right of children not to be discriminated
against by a government because they were born contrary
to a government plan; and
(5) asks that the President and the Secretary of State--
(A) raise the concerns expressed in this concurrent
resolution with the PRC Government;
(B) call upon the PRC Government to cease
immediately the policies outlined in this concurrent
resolution; and
(C) continue to withhold funds from UNFPA due to
UNFPA's continued involvement in supporting coercive
abortion and sterilization, which violates the ``Kemp-
Kasten'' provision of United States law.
By Larry Fine
November 17, 2005 - (Reuters) There is a shortfall of some 200 million women in the world -- "missing' due to what a three-year study on violence against women calls "gendercide." The number of what the study describes as 'missing' women is based on the random birthrate of males and females and how many fewer women there are than what would be expected in the world population, said Theodor Winkler, head of a research center that directed the project. Winkler told a news conference at the United Nations on Thursday that gender-related abortions and infanticides were the leading causes for the shortfall in the female population. Another factor was domestic violence, including so-called honor killings in some cultures.
"We are confronted with the slaughter of Eve, a systematic gendercide of tragic proportions," Winkler wrote in the preface to the study, recently published as a book titled "Women in an Insecure World." "There are dozens of ways women come to a grisly end," Winkler told U.N. reporters. "Obviously, human rights and the legal protection of women is of crucial importance but it is only one component. There is also a cultural change that must operate." Winkler said violence against women was the fourth-leading cause of premature death on the planet, ranking behind only disease, hunger and war. "It starts in the womb. There are societies where male births are preferred, particularly if the number of births are limited. That's where abortion for gender reasons starts," he said.
The book uses U.N., World Heath Organization and government reports and photographs to examine the plight of women. It details statistics on rape, violence traced to forced marriages, prostitution and sex slavery. The book says that according to a study based on 50 surveys from around the world, "at least one out of every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime." At least 700,000 women are sold into prostitution annually, the book added. "The deeply rooted phenomenon of the violence against women is one of the great crimes of humanity. We cannot close our eyes to it and hope it simply goes away," Winkler said.
The book was produced by a committee formed by the Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces to be distributed to governments, academics and health practitioners.
___________________________________________________________________________________
[110th CONGRESS House Bills]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: hc220ih.txt]
[Introduced in House]
110th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 220
Concerning the response of the United States to forced abortion and the
coercive one-child policy in the People's Republic of China, and the
resulting ``gendercide'' of girls in that country.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 27, 2007
Mr. Smith of New Jersey submitted the following concurrent resolution;
which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Concerning the response of the United States to forced abortion and the
coercive one-child policy in the People's Republic of China, and the
resulting ``gendercide'' of girls in that country.
Whereas since the 1980s the Government of the People's Republic of China (PRC)
has enforced a general one-child policy, which limits most women to
bearing one child, though some women in rural areas are permitted to
bear a second child, particularly if their first child is female;
Whereas the PRC Government coerces compliance with this policy by pervasive
propaganda, mandatory monitoring of women's reproductive cycles,
mandatory contraception, mandatory birth permits, mandatory
sterilization or contraceptive implantation, and government control of
birth spacing;
Whereas the PRC Government coerces compliance with this policy by punishing
failure to comply and refusal to abort ``out-of-plan'' children with
fines (called ``social compensation fees'') which often range from
roughly one-half to ten times the average Chinese annual income;
Whereas the PRC Government coerces compliance with this policy and pressures
women to abort ``out-of-plan'' children by means of job loss, group
punishments (imposing penalties or denying benefits to entire villages,
factories, and work units in the event of a single ``out-of-plan''
birth), and beating and abducting relatives of women who are pregnant
``out-of-plan'', so that they are socially ostracized and put under
social pressure to have an abortion;
Whereas the PRC Government physically destroys the homes of some of those who do
not pay social compensation fees;
Whereas the PRC Government creates an atmosphere of fear in which most Chinese
women feel they have little choice to comply with the Government's
draconian birth-limitation policy;
Whereas as recently as May 2007 it was credibly reported by the New York Times
and the Washington Post that the PRC Government ordered a crackdown on
population quotas and ``out-of-plan'' births in Guangxi province, that
Guangxi family planning officials conducted a campaign of violence in
detaining citizens, searching homes, confiscating valuables, and
destroying homes, and that this campaign provoked riots in which
thousands of citizens in eight townships fought with riot police,
overturned official vehicles, and damaged government offices, and that
several officials were killed in these riots;
Whereas the PRC Government has passed legislation that makes it illegal to force
women to have abortions;
Whereas at least 7 PRC provinces require abortion of children whose birth would
violate provincial regulations, while at least 10 PRC provinces require
unspecified ``remedial measures'';
Whereas many Congressional hearings and reports in leading newspapers and
newsmagazines throughout the world have established that PRC officials
charged with implementing the one-child policy frequently violate PRC
law by physically coercing abortions;
Whereas the PRC Government encourages its officials' illegal coercion of
abortions and sterilizations by making the promotions and bonuses of
local officials depend on meeting population targets, and by failing to
punish officials who physically coerce abortions;
Whereas PRC officials have punished citizens, including legal advocate Chen
Guangcheng, who have publicized population planning abuses by local
officials;
Whereas the PRC's policy of coercive birth limitation has caused Chinese
couples, many of whom have a cultural preference for sons, to abort or
abandon female infants so that they may try later to have a son,
resulting in a male to female birth ratio for first births of 121 to 100
and a male to female birth ratio for second births of 152 to 100,
according to official PRC figures;
Whereas the male to female birth ratio has been growing steadily wider since the
1980s, according to official PRC figures;
Whereas the ``gendercide'' caused by the PRC's policies has already created a
generation of young men of whom tens of millions will not be able to
find wives, due to the tens of millions of missing women;
Whereas the coercive birth limitation, in limiting most couples to one child,
has created generations of young people, few of whom know what it is to
have brothers or sisters, or aunts or uncles, and the cultural impact on
the PRC of this historically unprecedented situation is unknown;
Whereas in June 2006 the PRC's National People's Congress withdrew a proposed
law that would have criminalized sex-selective abortion;
Whereas the Population and Family Planning Law of the PRC contravenes standards
set by the 1995 Beijing Declaration and the 1994 Programme of Action of
the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development, to
which the PRC is a signatory, by limiting the number of children that
married women may bear and by banning unmarried women from bearing any
children;
Whereas the PRC Government contravenes standards set by the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant of Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights, to which the PRC is a signatory, by
discriminating against ``out-of-plan'' children by denying them basic
health care, education, and the right to marry;
Whereas the PRC Government contravenes the 1994 Programme of Action of the Cairo
International Conference on Population and Development, to which the PRC
is a signatory, by setting population targets;
Whereas the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child proclaims that
the child ``needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate
legal protection, before as well as after birth'';
Whereas since 1979 the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has been involved
in supporting, promoting, and facilitating the PRC's oppressive one-
child program;
Whereas Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush have
determined that UNFPA supports the PRC Government's program of coercive
abortion or involuntary sterilization;
Whereas UNFPA support for the PRC Government's program of coerced abortion and
involuntary sterilization violates the ``Kemp-Kasten'' provision of
United States law;
Whereas former UNFPA Representative in Beijing, Sven Burmester, has said that,
``China has had the most successful family planning policy in the
history of mankind in terms of quantity and with that, China has done
mankind a favor'';
Whereas former UNFPA Executive Director, Nafis Sadik, has said, ``I have had the
honor of being associated with China's reproductive health and family
planning programme for more than two decades. I was instrumental in
initiating UNFPA's cooperation with China in 1979 ... I also feel proud
that UNFPA made the wise decision to resist external pressures and
continued its fruitful cooperation with China.'', and moreover claimed
that, ``the implementation of the policy [in China] and the acceptance
of the policy is purely voluntary. There is no such thing as, you know,
a license to have a birth and so on.'';
Whereas UNFPA Executive Director Sadik also said, ``China has every reason to
feel proud of and pleased with its remarkable achievements made in its
family planning policy. The country could offer its experiences and
special expertise to help other countries,'' adding that the ``UNFPA is
going to employ some of [China]'s family planning experts to work in
other countries and popularize China's experiences in population growth
control and family planning''; and
Whereas paragraph 31 of the UNFPA Country Program Document for China, issued on
October 10, 2005, states that the UNFPA will seek to ``enhance the role
of China in the international arena, including through greater South-
South collaboration'' and to ``seek to strengthen the capacity for
South-South Collaboration in the areas of reproductive health, ageing,
gender and HIV/AIDS'', thereby indicating its plans to assist the PRC
Government in exporting its population planning program to other
countries: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),
That Congress--
(1) strongly condemns the continued violations of human
rights by the Government of the People's Republic of China
(PRC), including--
(A) the limitation of the number of children a
woman may bear, as well as the intrusive system that
supports this limitation, which includes setting
population targets, mandatory monitoring of women's
reproductive cycles, requiring that women obtain
``birth permits'', and government control of birth
spacing;
(B) coercing compliance with its birth limitations
through job loss, social ostracization, fines, and the
creation of an atmosphere of fear; and
(C) violent enforcement of its birth limitations
through policies that encourage officials to physically
force women to have abortions and to be sterilized, to
destroy homes, to beat and abduct the relatives and
friends of women pregnant ``out-of-plan,'' and the
punishment of those who publicize such abuses;
(2) urges the PRC Government to cease these policies, which
have led to the social catastrophe of ``gendercide'';
(3) urges the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to
cease all its activities in the PRC and to withdraw from that
country;
(4) affirms certain internationally recognized human
rights, including--
(A) the right of women to bear children
unconstrained by government policies which would limit
the number of children they bear or prevent them from
bearing children; and
(B) the right of children not to be discriminated
against by a government because they were born contrary
to a government plan; and
(5) asks that the President and the Secretary of State--
(A) raise the concerns expressed in this concurrent
resolution with the PRC Government;
(B) call upon the PRC Government to cease
immediately the policies outlined in this concurrent
resolution; and
(C) continue to withhold funds from UNFPA due to
UNFPA's continued involvement in supporting coercive
abortion and sterilization, which violates the ``Kemp-
Kasten'' provision of United States law.
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