China, Children and the Fight for Human Rights

By Judy Chen

The one-child policy has been a defining characteristic of China since its implementation in 1979. Although its recent modification permits families under certain qualifications to have two children instead of one, China’s population control policy is still quite controversial. Even after the policy shift, the Chinese government executes rigid regulations on private decisions such as family planning and women’s free exercise of their reproductive rights. The intransigent and impersonal enforcement of the one-child policy resulted in countless incidents of sex-selective and forced abortions, which has presented severe barriers for female empowerment and the ongoing effort against patriarchy in China. Nominally, the two-child policy has widened the options of family size for this generation and hopefully, the ones to come. 

However, small family has become an integral and encouraged part of Chinese urban culture; A sudden increase in average family size is predicted to be unlikely, especially with the rising cost of subsistence in cities. Meanwhile, individuals in rural areas have become  accustomed to bribing town, county and village officials to avoid punishment for having too many children. To a certain extent, expecting a positive shift in the corrupt rural culture due to the two-child policy is unrealistic. Whether or not the modified policy will mitigate harmful practices such as sex-selective and forced abortions, involuntary sterilization and deprivation of girls’ education is up in the air. However, with all the progress this policy changes represents,Chinese women still have no autonomy over their private, reproductive rights. By weighing the impact of China's population control policies, we can address the long-held question: How can China work towards both freedom and sustainable population growth?

One-Child

The inflexible implementation of the One-Child Policy has given rise to cultural practices that undermine women’s bodily autonomy, including sex-selective and late-term forced abortions.

In 2005, more than 1.1 million excess births of boys occurred partly as a result of sex-selective abortions. Sex-selective abortions occurred more frequently in rural than urban areas as a result of deeply embedded patriarchal values. Medical technology, although limited, is still accessible in rural areas, and allows families the option to know the sex of the fetus before birth. While it is true that the one-child restriction does not impact rural families as severely because of frequent briberies of administrative officials and significantly less rigid enforcement of the law, it has deepened general preference of sons over daughters, especially for among families who could not afford to bribe. Historically, men have been the head of the household in China. This traditional, commonly-held value is hardly mitigated in most rural areas in China, due to lack of exposure to Western liberal ideals that promotes equality, justice and individual rights. Sons are seen as more valuable assets because of their perceived future ability to contribute physical strength to farming, earn majority of household income and more importantly, to carry the family name and legacy to the next generation. Daughters are more commonly perceived as components of the family that will eventually be “married off” to another one. Rooted in China’s historical culture, this mindset resulted in higher youth literacy rate among males.Families do not see educating daughters as a necessity since they are mostly expected to stay at home in their marriages.

Although the government outlawed prenatal sex determination for non-health-related reasons in 1986, the trend of gendercide has not significantly dwindled in rural areas because son preference, the root of the problem, persisted as a norm. Unfortunately, government regulations did not have a substantial effect on stopping gendercide for two reasons: back-door services that accepted bribery, and superstitious means of prenatal sex determination. In urban cities, sex-selective abortions occurred less. Although residents in developed cities were more likely to be influenced by Western ideals, they were subject to much stricter law enforcement compared to rural families. The one-child limitation drives a sizable number of couples to the traditional norm of son preference. Back-door services and non-medical approaches, to a lesser degree than in rural areas, nonetheless enable couples to engage in gendercide even after government regulations were uptputplace. Even with the exponentially growing population in the status quo, the United Nations Population Fund, in conjunction with UNICEF, U.N. Women and WHO, openly denounce the practice of sex-selective abortion and gendercide as it obstructs the progress of global female empowerment and compromises women’s reproductive health.

Under the one-child policy, more blatant human rights violations presented themselves in the form of late-term abortions and involuntary sterilizations, both enforced by the government. In most cases, women and families expecting their second child had no other option but to abort if they hoped to keep their jobs. The option of paying a fine that takes up a considerable percentage of household income was not realistic for middle and working class families. Since the fine grows with income level, the stakes of violating the policy are high for wealthier citizens as well. The Chinese government put severe pressure on women and family to follow a law that impaired their autonomy.

At a more drastic level, there have been incidents where local officials forcefully carried out the actual procedures to meet the birth quota of a unit of community (e.g. village, town, city). In October 2013, Zhou Guoqiang and his wife Liu Xinwen’s home was broken into, at 4am, by 20 officials of Shandong Province Family Planning Commission, some of whom took Liu to the hospital where she was injected with abortion-inducing drugs involuntarily, while her husband was held down by the rest of the officials at home. In July 2012, Zhong Xuexiang, a 39-year-old woman, suffered from severe bleeding as a result of involuntary sterilization forced by local authorities, who reneged on their promise to cover the medical cost after the procedure. A report by U.N. human rights council called upon China to prohibit forced abortion and sterilization and investigate occurrences of such horrendous events. The Chinese government insisted that practices were already outlawed and refused to further investigate the aforementioned cases that were broadcasted internationally. The stories of Liu and Zhong are not anomalies. The one-child policy instigated irreversible oppression on women’s reproductive autonomy, which counters U.N.’s recognition of “the opportunities to decide the number and spacing of children” as a fundamental human right to all parents.

Two-Child

The official riddance of the one-child policy presents a significantly wider option for most families. However, real-life barriers that prevent families from having two children will not automatically disappear due to a change in policy. It is predicted that the new policy would not induce expected level of change in the status quo due to economic barriers and the prevalent norm of small family in cities, and existent lack of law enforcement in rural areas. The cost of living in cities, especially metropolises in China, is disproportionately high compared to the income of middle and working classes. “According to the Chinese Academy of Social Science, it costs 490,000 yuan ($77,165) to raise a child from birth to 16 years old in an average city in China. Meanwhile, a Credit Suisse survey suggests the average cost of raising a child to 18 is 23,000 yuan ($3,622) a year, eating away 43 percent of the average family's annual income.” 

In rural areas, the practice of bribery and use of private connections for illegal accomplishments are too widespread for the new policy to cause a substantial increase in population. The liberation of China’s population control policy did not occur simultaneously with the growth in the comprehensiveness of social security, especially regarding child welfare and paid maternity leave. Women who hold lower-income, less secure jobs may be pressured to abort their second child if their employers or the government could not guarantee their and offer them the financial support they need at the same time. "The financial pressure is my main concern," said IT company manager Gong Yanming, who expects his first child to arrive in a couple of weeks, "If we decide to have another baby, then my wife needs to quit her job and stay home with kids all the time. But we will not be able to afford a life with two children in that way. It's so expensive to raise a child in China, I would rather focus all my resources on one child." Speculation that the two-child policy will fail is high due to structural, economic and cultural reasons, which presents the possibility of China reverting its policy back to the one-child limitation. In that case, it would only be a matter of time before the resurgence of human rights violations induced by the one-child policy.

Even if the two-child policy successfully increases average family size, China still has a long way to go before they achieve the complete elimination of aforementioned human rights abuses such as sex-selective abortions. The root cause of this practice is the culturally entrenched value of gender preference. However, the one-child limitation irreversibly exacerbated the backwards cultural trend. The only effective way to fight son preference in China is to significantly reduce governmental pressure so that families have full control over their private reproductive decisions. This somewhat radical scenario would halt or significantly slow down the growth of gendercide. Parents who genuinely oppose gendercide will be much less compelled by cultural factors to decide on their future child’s gender through means that conflict with international norms of gender equality.

Finally, it is worth noting that easing the policy from one child to two children does not obliterate the fact PRC government still dictates families’ private, reproductive decisions. The enforcement of population control policies still compromise women’s reproductive autonomy, a fundamental human right recognized by international institutions such as the United Nations, U.N. Women and WHO, and the privacy to which families are entitled.

What Now?

Despite contention surrounding its morality, the one-child policy generated substantial benefits for China’s development. It is estimated that the one-child policy prevented approximately 400 million births since its implementation, which in turn kept the poverty level from soaring. Exemptions were provided in cases of children with disability and families that belong to ethnic minorities. Couples were rewarded for their compliance through certificates that guaranteed interest-free loans, education subsidy, and longer periods of maternity leave.

 
On the other hand, this strict restriction caused widespread societal issues: rapid growth of elderly population, labor shortages, and high suicide rates that accompanies the pressure of being the only child in China’s prevailing culture of expectation. While the world is waiting to see the effect of the two-child policy, one must wonder if there could be an alternative that better ensures the preservation of human rights. The government could shift the emphasis of its policy from limitation of family size to incentivization for financially responsible family planning, while expanding coverages of welfare, social securities, and basic infrastructures. Although such structural changes often require decades to implement, they are necessary objectives for China; a country’s economic development is no excuse to compromise its citizens’ entitlement to universal human rights.