China’s One Child Policy Turns 40 — Forced Abortion and Infanticide Continue

A victim of late-term forced abortion in China in 2012.

According to an August, 2020 report by Radio Free Asia:

Every hospital had a family-planning unit that was responsible for implementation [of China’s Two-Child Policy] – who had how many kids, when they’d given birth to them – they tracked all of this. The regulations were so strict: There had to be three or four years between children. There were babies born at nine months who we killed after inducing labor. [Medical staff would] even kill the babies after they’d been born . . . they would kill them and dispose of the body. They wouldn’t give the baby to the parents – they kill the babies when they’re born.”

This is the statement given to RFA by Hasiyet Abdulla, who worked in several hospitals in the Xinjiang/East Turkistan region of China for 15 years.

Today marks the 40^th anniversary of China’s One-Child (now Two-Child) Policy, the most massive social experiment in human history, responsible for hundreds of millions of forced abortions and sterilizations. Forced abortion continues under the Two-Child Policy, as third children remain illegal. Indeed, the same RFA investigation reports that, “According to a June 8 [2020] report published on the official Xinjiang Web news site, an average of 8 million “extra” pregnancies are aborted in China each year.”

This August 17, 2020 report by Radio Free Asia is the third in a trilogy of block-buster investigative reports – one by the Associated Press, the other by Adrian Zenz of the Jamestown Institute, both released in June, 2020 — demonstrating current, widespread use of forced abortion and sterilization by the Chinese Communist Party, against the Uyghur minority Muslim population of Xinjiang.

Forced abortion, involuntary sterilization and infanticide continue to cause unimaginable suffering in China. China’s One (now Two) Child Policy has caused more violence against women and girls than any other official policy in human history. Now, on the 40^th anniversary of its inception, we demand that this violence must end.

These reports demonstrate conclusively what I have been saying for years: coercive population control has continued under the Two Child Policy. What happened to the Han Chinese under the One Child Policy is happening to the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang now. I believe these atrocities constitute both genocide and crimes against humanity.

Watch the video, “Stop Forced Abortion, China’s War on Women.”

Sign a petition to end forced abortion in China.

Coercive population control in China has also led to the sex-selective abortion of tens of millions of baby girls. Now, there are an estimated 30 to 40 million more men living in China than women. This extreme gender imbalance has led to large-scale human trafficking and sexual slavery in China. Learn more about our Save a Girl Campaign, which has saved hundreds of baby girls in China.

Relatively unknown, however, is another enormous demographic group virtually ignored thus far: the elderly, especially widows. To address this, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers launched our Save a Widow Campaign.

WATCH our new video on Saving Widows in China:

China’s current elderly population is 241 million, 17.3 % of the nation’s total population, and rising. China’s elderly population is set to peak at nearly half a billion, or 35% of the total population, in 2050.

Sadly, senior suicide is on the rise. According to a report in the China Daily — a Chinese government–affiliated English language news outlet — the suicide rate of rural Chinese elderly has increased 500% in the past two decades, from 100 to 500 per 100,000. An abstract in The Lancet stated, “ On average, mortality from suicide in Chinese people aged 65-85 was 2.75-7.08 times that of the general population.” According to sociologist Liu Yanwu, who studied the issue for six years, “. . . I was more shocked by the lack of concern in villages where the elderly commit suicide . . . It seems that death is nothing to fear, and suicide is a normal, even a happy end.”

In the past, elders were venerated and cared for by their children and grandchildren. “Filial piety was valued in old China, but many elderly people in rural areas can no longer depend on their children as a result of the great economic and social changes over the past three decades,” continues Liu, “and the pension system fails to compensate . . . In China, farmers are vulnerable, and old farmers are the most vulnerable.”

The studies show that the elderly, especially elderly widows who traditionally have depended on their children to support them in old age, are becoming destitute and so desperate that they are committing suicide. They are the invisible victims of the demographic disaster caused by the One Child Policy and are in urgent need of help. For this reason, we launched our Save a Widow Campaign. We have boots on the ground inside of China, restoring the dignity and giving practical support to abandoned, destitute widows in China to show them someone cares.

To learn more about the Save a Widow Campaign, click here.

To learn more about the Save a Girl Campaign, click here.

Related Links

Xinjiang Hospitals Aborted, Killed Babies Outside Family Planning Limits

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/abortions-08172020144036.html

China Cuts Uighur Births with IUDs, Abortion, Sterilization

https://apnews.com/article/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c

Sterilizations, IUDs and Mandatory Birth Control: The CCP’s Campaign to Suppress Uighur Birthrates in Xinjiang, By Adrian Zenz

https://jamestown.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Zenz-Internment-Sterilizations-and-IUDs-UPDATED-July-21-Rev2.pdf?x19740

Injury and Suicide in People Aged 60 years and over in China, An Analysis of Nationwide Data

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32670-9/fulltext

Isolated and Abandoned: The Heartbreaking Reality of Old Age in Rural China