Introduction
The One-Child policy in China, which is also referred to as the family planning policy was formed in 1978. The aim of this policy that was initiated by the government is to alleviate several problems that touch on the social, economic, and environmental perspectives that relate to large populations.
The enforcement of the policy is mainly concentrated in urban areas, where population pressure on amenities and services is considered immense. However, residents of rural China are mostly allowed to have two children at most. Several communities, mainly the minority groups are exempt from the policy (Cheng and Chan 24). The policy imposes draconian measures that deny the Chinese people their fundamental right to decide on the size of their families.
The state has equally sustained this policy by employing some of the most inhuman control methods, including forcing women to procure abortions and sterilizing them to reduce chances of getting pregnant. China’s One-Child policy should be abolished because apart from infringing on such a basic right of procreation, it upholds inequality in society by discriminating upon sections of the country’s citizens based on their ethnicity, and location of residence.
Violation of Human Rights
With the One-Child policy having been in existence for close to four decades now, a revelation by the ministry of health indicates that about 336 million abortions have been procured in the country in compliance with the regulation. Given that these activities have been ongoing against the wishes of the victims and in a forceful manner, there are higher possibilities that the actual figure exceeds whatever the ministry has disclosed.
This significant figure illustrates the extent of the injustice that the state is repeatedly committing against its people from the time of the policy’s enactment. This considerable number of the Chinese people also highlights the simple fact that many of the country’s citizens do not approve of the family planning policy. It indicates the fact that many Chinese nationals would have changed the policy were they to be given a chance.
The sheer size of the abortions illustrates the violation to the right to life. The government has taken upon itself to end prematurely the innocent lives without getting the consent of the parents involved. The revelation by the Chinese health ministry aggregates to more than 13 million cases of abortion being conducted every year in the country.
However, this figure omits unreported, as well as the medication-induced abortions that occur daily throughout the country. In other words, up to 24 women per every 1,000 aged between 15 and 44 have been forced to abort by government officials charged with the responsibility of upholding the family planning policy.
In enforcing the One-Child policy, the Chinese government has been notorious in violating basic rights of its people, both men and women. Millions of people have reportedly been sterilized without their approval. The government has required women to seek permission, in some instances, before they can get pregnant.
Often, couples who fail to adhere to the policy requirements are required to pay hefty fines. There are instances where such couples lose their residency rights, as well as their homes. Children born in contravention of the policy requirements, particularly in rural China, are considered illegal and often are never registered officially by their parents.
However, such innocent children are subjected to severe inhumane discrimination from the apparent ‘crimes’ committed by their parents. The situation is even worse in the case of a girl child. Such ‘illegal’ children are denied medical attention and the chance to attend school like other children because the state does not recognize them (Parrot and Cummings 59).
As Parrot and Cummings (59) continue to elaborate, such a child will also be denied access to other important services that are offered by the government. The girl-child in China who ends up surviving such cruel treatments often suffers from neglect. These acts, majority of which are perpetrated by the state through its numerous agencies undermine any justifications, whatsoever, of the need to maintain the family planning policy.
The outright suffering which innocent children are subjected to because of being born against the policy stipulations contravenes, by all standards, the fundamental human rights as defined by the United Nations. China is renowned internationally for having killed an upwards of 250,000 baby girls in the period between 1979 and 1984 (Fielder and King 286).
Inequality in Society
Although China’s family planning policy was intended to regulate the uncontrolled growth of population, the policy faces the challenge of apparent preference being given to sons (Eriksson 257). There is obvious inequality and biasness in the Chinese society, which is a phenomenon that has been fueled mainly by the family planning policy. According to published reports, newborns gender ratio recorded in 2005 stand at 118 boys per every 100 girls.
In secluded regions of the country, such as Guangdong and Hainan, the ratios stood at 130 boys per every 100 girls. The average sex ratio for China based on the census conducted in 2,000 indicates the ratio is at 117. However, at 136, Hainan registered the highest ratio while Tibet had the least, at 103 (Mansbach and Rhodes 465).
Among the notable issues that are attributable to this large sex ratio imbalance is the fact that there is a permanent preference within the society for boys. Women’s low socio-economic status further reinforces this practice. However, American Researcher Nicholas Eberstadt notes that the One-Child policy that has been enforced since the late 1970s plays a significant role in intensifying the problem (Mansbach and Rhodes 465).
The family planning policy, in this regard, is in total violation of the constitution governing the People’s Republic of China and should, therefore, be abolished. Article 48 of the constitution stipulates that women in China enjoy equal rights with their male colleagues in all aspects of life, including family life (Peoples Republic of China para 51). Female infanticide has for many years been a practice strongly associated with the Chinese society (Weightman 77).
Even though this heinous act could have been in place long before even the effecting of the One-Child policy, it is also true to point out that this policy has contributed immensely to the practice. Because majority of the Chinese people prefer to have boys than girls, they will easily be pushed into killing their daughters in disappointment of lacking a son.
It would, thus, be appropriate for a Chinese couple to kill their only daughter and have an excuse to the government on their need to give birth to their one child as stipulated by law. The girl child is discriminated against and even treated as a lesser being for their fact that their gender is ‘wrong’.
The Chinese government, through the family planning policy, highlights the fact that it openly promotes gender bias, despite the constitution of the country speaking to the contrary. Despite the policy having been applied uniformly in both rural and urban China, the government later on allowed waivers for the rural families in a move that openly displays the girl child as inferior to the boy child.
The gender bias waivers that the government introduced for the rural families included the chance to give birth to a second child in case the first-born was a girl (Lau 266). This explains the gender biasness that the One-Child policy is actually based on.
The mere fact that the family planning policy gives a leeway to its rural residents to have more than one child while those living in the urban areas are restricted to only child is tantamount to discrimination (Newman 18). It is also in violation of the country’s constitution, which provides under Article 4 that the nationalities in China enjoy equal treatment (Peoples Republic of China para 7).
Although the policy’s intention may have been for the good of China, helping the government to control the country’s rate of population growth, applying the rules selectively while basing the argument on a person’s location of residence violates the rights to equality, which should be accorded to all Chinese people.
People do not select where they wish to be born prior to their birth and, therefore, it gives unfair treatment to all the Chinese people who were born in urban areas. The government should have rather looked for alternatives to achieve its targeted objectives in a fair and just manner than subject the people to an unequal law.
A similar argument can be advanced against the policy’s directive to apply based on people’s ethnicity. While Chinese nationals hailing from minority ethnic groups can enjoy bearing more than one child, those from large ethnic groups are restricted to only one child.
Among the Chinese communities regarded as minority groups, and which enjoy waivers to the policy demands include the Zhuang, Manchu, Uighur, Yi, Miao, Tibetan, Tujia, and Mongolian. Others include the Dong, Yao, Buoyi, Yao, Korean, Dai, Li, Kazrk, as well as the Bai and the Hani. Not only does such a directive discriminate people based on their ethnic tribes, it also condemns them for having hailed from a large community.
Human beings are born to their respective ethnic tribes not out of their own choice, but rather out of God’s choice. Given that the Chinese constitution clearly defines the need to treat people from all nationalities with equality, the family planning policy clearly violates this right to equality. It is, therefore, contravening the constitution and should be abolished to maintain the equality as is defined by the law.
Conclusion
The contemporary world is a world where the rights of human beings must be respected. People need to be treated with equality and without being discriminated upon on the basis of their ethnic numbers, their area of residence, or any other such dimensions. China’s One-Child policy, which has been in existence for close to four decades now, and which has perpetrated all these crimes against the Chinese should be abolished.
State officers and agencies under the guise of enforcing the draconian family planning policy have subjected women to endless inhumane treatment. Pregnant women and those found guilty to have contravened the policy are forcefully taken to government family planning clinics where either an abortion or sterilization is conducted on them.
These acts of violation to basic procreation rights are done without the consent of the victims. Men, too, are forcefully sterilized to deny them the right to rear children of their own desire. Other acts of violation to rights conducted by the government include demanding that women seek permission from the government on when to conceive, denying children the basic rights to education and medication, as well as fining ‘culprits’ heavily for giving birth to extra children.
In terms of inequality, this policy has promoted unfair favoritism for the boy child against the girl child. Even residents of China’s urban areas are denied the right to give birth to more than one child, while their counterparts in rural areas enjoy these rights. This is against the constitution of the People’s Republic of China, which stipulates that all the Chinese people are equal before the law.
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