“Jia Lan’s” mom was so desperate she considered suicide.  Our Save-a-Girl campaign gave her hope!

Jia Lan was three and a half months old when our Save-a-Girl fieldworker came to her mother’s door.  She is a second daughter, and she is lucky to be alive. 

Jia Lan’s mother was widowed two years ago.  Her husband died of a sudden heart attack.  She had been living with her husband and his parents.  Her mother-in-law asked her to leave her home one month after her husband died.  She and her nine-year-old daughter had no place to live.

The thirty-two-year-old widow was looked down upon by the people of her rural village.  In the traditional way of thinking among farmers, when a husband died from a sudden illness, it was because his wife had brought him bad luck.  Men would rather marry a divorced woman than a widow, fearing that the widow would bring bad luck into their home.

When our fieldworker visited her, Jia Lan’s mom couldn’t help crying when she talked about how painful her life was at that time.  She admitted to our fieldworker that she considered suicide several times.  Looking at her nine-year-old daughter, she couldn’t bear to leave her alone in the world, so she gritted her teeth and insisted on living.  

Jia Lan’s mom had been introduced to a man in the next village who was once arrested for a fight.  Because of this arrest, the man was considered “not qualified” to choose a wife.  Feeling she had no choice, Jia Lan’s mom agreed to marry this man, who became Jia Lan’s father.  Therefore, Jia Lan is the first daughter of this father and the second daughter of her mother.

Jia Lan’s mom told our fieldworker that she did not want to have a second child because the family had no extra money to support a second child.  Also, Jia Lan’s mom worried that her new husband would care less for the first daughter when he had his own child.

To make matters worse, because of the lockdown of the cities, most of the vegetables in the greenhouses rotted in the ground last winter.  The family was already under severe financial strain.  It was a difficult time for a baby to come!  

Under the relentless pressure of rural life, Jia Lan’s mother was unable to nurse her new daughter, and the expense of baby formula was more than they could afford.  No one offered to help them.  Instead, many people looked down on them.  Their situation was dire. 

When our fieldworker came to their door, offering encouragement and practical help with $25 per month for a year, Jia Lan’s mom showed a rare smile.  Jia Lan’s mom said that the bad time has passed, and God has sent an angel to them as a sign of the beginning of good luck.  She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she was so happy.  God came to bless her family through the generosity of strangers, and suddenly her life is full of hope!

Won’t you help us save more baby girls in China?  We have saved hundreds of girls, and yet there are millions more who are being aborted or abandoned just because they are girls – or who are at-risk because of grinding poverty.  Each one of these girls is infinitely precious. Please help us save them by donating to our “Save a Girl” Campaign.

 Learn more about how you can help to save girls here: Women’s Rights Without Frontiers – Stop Forced Abortion – China’s War on Women! (womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org)

For $25 per month, or $300 per year, our GirlSavers have helped WRWF save at-risk babies in China!  These babies may not be alive, or they may have been “given away,” or not had enough to eat, if our undercover fieldworker had not found them and extended a helping hand to their mothers. We put our money where our mouth is, offering practical assistance to empower these mothers to keep their daughters. 

We are the only organization in the world with boots on the ground saving baby girls and impoverished widows in China.  Will you please help them?

“Hee Fang” lost her daughter and grandchild to a forced abortion at eight months under China’s One Child Policy

Hee Fang is seventy-nine years old. Her husband died thirty years ago from a brain tumor.  He was a rural farmer, a very strong man, working hard all the time, and he rarely got sick.  When doctors discovered the brain tumor, it was already too late.  His last words to his wife were: don’t waste money on him, save it for herself and their son—and make sure to find a wife for the son.  Hee Fang told our fieldworker that after her husband died, she went to his grave and cried for three months.  She has never thought about remarrying anyone else, and she remembers every word her husband told her.

Together, Hee Fang and her husband had a son and a daughter.  When the daughter was eight months pregnant, under the former One Child Policy, the Family Planning Police took her to the hospital for a forced abortion.  Her daughter never returned.  Apparently, her daughter must have died from the violence of a forced abortion at eight months.  Hee Fang lost both her daughter and her grandchild to China’s brutal One Child Policy.

Hee Fang’s son is alive, and Hee Fang tried her best to fulfill her husband’s wish.  She found him a wife, and now he has a family of his own.  Even though her son knows his mother misses him, he rarely visits her.  He just leaves her alone in her small old room.

Hee Fang said she is ready to go meet her husband in heaven.  She sees no reason to live any longer.  She lives in chronic pain, especially at night.   She cannot remember how many times, in the middle of the night, she has asked her husband to take her away from this world.  

In the midst of her desperation, our fieldworker appeared at her door, to offer Hee Fang encouragement, hope, and practical help — $25 a month for the rest of her life.  Hee Fang told our fieldworker she can’t believe that Women’s Rights Without Frontiers helps poor widows like her.  Most people look down on her.  We do the opposite: we try to help her.  Hee Fang cried when she said: “It must be God.  Only God helps the helpless and makes the weak become strong.”