Fines for too many children drive farmer to suicide

By Bob Unruh

(WND.com) – Enough. Is. Enough.

That’s the message from Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of Womens Rights Without Frontiers, she is urging the United Nations to deliver to China for its abuse of women and children.

She wants the global body to investigate one of its own branches for complicity in the abuse.

“The mayhem caused by China’s One-Child Policy continues unabated and has taken some troubling new twists, with people being driven to mental breakdown, murder and suicide, as well as an obstetrician using her position of trust in order to traffic babies,” Littlejohn said Monday.

She said a minor modification China made in its policy Jan. 1 has failed to solve the problems.

“The One-Child Policy does not need to be modified,” she declared. “It needs to be abolished.”

Her organization has filed a formal complaint with the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. It notes that while the agency has reached a statement condemning China’s routinely imposed forced abortion, sterilization and contraception, nothing has changed.

The complaint also said the U.N. Population Fund should be investigated for its participation in the forced abortion programs.

In her letter to the UNCSW, Littlejohn cited the consequences of the Chinese population control plan, as evidenced by recent events.

“In China’s Guangxi Region, a man stabbed to death two government workers after they told him he could not register his fourth child because he did not pay the ‘social compensation fee.’ He injured four other workers, including severing the hand of one,” she noted.

Then there was the husband in Hunan Province who demanded government compensation because his wife “has suffered from schizophrenia and violent behavior since she was forcibly aborted at seven months.”

Ai Guangdong, a farmer in Hebei Province, killed himself by drinking pesticide during a dispute with family planning officials over fines for having too many children, Littlejohn said.

“Since the farmer did not have money to pay the fines, family planning officials confiscated 3.5 tons of corn, the entire savings of the family.” He drank pesticide and died.

Then there was the case of the obstetrician in Shaanxi province, Zhang Shuxia, who was convicted of trafficking seven infants, “after she had convinced their parents that the infants were seriously ill or deceased,” Littlejohn reported.

And in Guizhou Province, a farmer and father of four committed suicide because he could not afford to pay the fines to enroll his children in school. His wife stated her husband said to her before he cut his wrists: “What did we bring them into the world for, to be as dumb as cattle? I cannot see my children grow up uneducated.”

Littlejohn noted to the U.N. that her group previously has submitted similar complaints, but China “has never responded to them.”

“We believe that, given the international outrage generated by forced abortion and gendercide in China, it behooves China to respond.”

The NWCSW theme for 2013 was “Elimination and Prevention of All Forms of Violence Against Women and Girls.”

“There is no greater violence against women than forced abortion, up to the ninth month of pregnancy. Women themselves sometimes die as a result of these violent procedures. There is no greater violence against girls than gendercide, which has claimed up to 200 million lives of girls selected for abortion solely because they are girls,” she told the UNCSW, which has reached “Agreed Conclusions” that denounce the attacks.

“The Chinese government … is the major perpetrator in the world of ‘forced medical procedures’ of the kind set forth in the UNCSW Agreed Conclusions. The UNCSW should put teeth into its Agreed Conclusions by presenting this complaint to the Chinese government and requiring a response,” Littlejohn said.

Moreover, the UNFPA should be thoroughly investigated for being part of the problem not the solution, she wrote.

“Former Secretary of State Colin Powell found the UNFPA to be complicit with coercive family planning in China. WRWF believes that any independent investigation of the UNFPA’s current practices would arrive at the same conclusion,” she said. “In a striking blow against China’s One Child Policy, the European Parliament passed a resolution strongly condemning forced abortion and involuntary sterilization in China and globally, citing Feng Jianmei, who was forcibly aborted at seven months in June, 2012.”

Littlejohn said it’s “significant that the European Parliament has acknowledged that it provides funding for family planning in China and has urged the commission to ensure that this funding is not associated with coercion.”

“For decades, the UNFPA has worked hand in hand with the Chinese population control machine, which is coercive. We have no doubt that any unbiased investigation by the European Parliament, the United Nations, or any other governmental body will reveal that UNFPA is complicit with coercive family planning in China. The UNCSW should likewise undertake such an investigation,” she said.

“The One-Child Policy causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on earth,” she said. “It is China’s war on women. Any discussion of women’s rights, or human rights, would be a charade if forced abortion in China is not front and center.”

She noted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed.

“For every family that posts their experience of heartbreak on the Internet – and thereby risks persecution by the Chinese Communist Party – there are thousands or millions who suffer silently,” Littleton said.

“This year, we have seen a tragic rise in murder and suicide associated with the crushing ‘social compensation fees,’ which can cost up to 14 times a person’s annual salary, an amount the vast majority of Chinese citizens cannot afford. If the parents are unable to pay these ‘terror fines,’ their children will be denied ‘hukou,’ or household registration. Without hukou, children are ineligible for healthcare or education. They become illegal aliens in their own land,” she said.

WND reportedly last month WRWF’s objections to the decision by the Obama State Department to promote China from a “Tier 3″ very serious offender to a “Tier 2″ status on the U.S. human-rights watch list.

The move apparently was based on China’s decision to allow a few families to have a second child legally.

WRWF has launched its “Save a Girl” program to undermine China’s one-child policy, which encourages couples to abort their female babies in favor of males, because of the culture’s emphasis on male offspring.

According to Littlejohn, her group’s network of fieldworkers on the ground in China visits women who are thinking of aborting or abandoning their baby girls.

“We offer them monthly stipends for a year to help them keep their daughters. The program has met with great success – women are choosing to keep their baby daughters, with our encouragement and help.”

She said one recent example involves the mother of babies Bao-yo and Hui-ying, whose names have been changed for security reasons.

When their mother learned she was pregnant, she was thrilled, Littlejohn said.

“Soon, however, her in-laws began pressuring her to have a boy, so she went to a local hospital to have an ultrasound performed to determine the sex of the child,” she said. “If it were a boy, she would have the baby. If it were a girl, she would abort. What would have been double her happiness turned to double despair: she was pregnant with not one, but two girls. When her husband’s family found out the news, they were furious with their daughter-in-law. She didn’t know what to do.”

Littlejohn said a Women’s Rights Without Frontiers’ undercover fieldworkers found the frightened woman and told her about the group’s “Save a Girl” campaign.

“The pregnant mother and her husband could not believe an American organization would care about their daughters,” she said. “Our fieldworker showed them pictures and told them stories of other families we have helped, other families who chose to join with us in believing that girls matter just as much as boys.”

Read original article at WND.com. Republished with permission: http://www.wnd.com/2014/08/fines-for-too-many-children-drive-farmer-to-suicide/

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