{"id":2884,"date":"2019-06-27T17:09:54","date_gmt":"2019-06-27T17:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/?p=2884"},"modified":"2019-06-27T18:00:49","modified_gmt":"2019-06-27T18:00:49","slug":"littlejohn-to-u-n-human-rights-council-in-geneva-china-is-a-severe-abuser-of-womens-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.womensrightswithoutfrontiers.org\/blog\/littlejohn-to-u-n-human-rights-council-in-geneva-china-is-a-severe-abuser-of-womens-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"LITTLEJOHN AT U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL IN GENEVA: CHINA IS A SEVERE ABUSER OF WOMEN\u2019S RIGHTS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Panelists from left to right: Lois Herman, Director, Women\u2019s United Nations Reporting Network (Moderator); Littlejohn; Mohinder Watson, Founder of ACE & FM (addressed a related Panel on Child Widows), Margaret Owen, Director of Widows for Peace through Democracy. Photo courtesy of Women\u2019s Rights Without Frontiers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, JUNE 27, 2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Women\u2019s Rights Without Frontiers<\/a> co-hosted a Panel at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, together with the Women\u2019s United Nations Reporting Network.\u00a0 WRWF President, Reggie Littlejohn, stated, \u201cIt was a great honor, and indeed a minor miracle, to co-host this landmark Panel, highly critical of the Chinese government\u2019s record on women\u2019s rights.\u00a0 China sits on the Human Rights Council in Geneva and has veto power.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how our Panel seemed to slip through the cracks!\u201d\u00a0 The venue was packed, indicating the high level of interest in hearing the truth regarding the abuses against the rights of women and girls perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party.\u00a0 Littlejohn\u2019s remarks focused on several ways in which the Chinese government has violated the Beijing Platform for Action, whose 25th<\/sup> anniversary will arrive in 2020.\u00a0 Specifically, Littlejohn focuses on the continuation of the sex-selective abortion of baby girls and forced abortion under the Two-Child Policy, as well as the unimaginable suffering of abandoned, elderly widows in the Chinese countryside.\u00a0 Her full Address can be found below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Abandoned in China:  Baby Girls and Widows<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Address by Reggie Littlejohn,\nPresident, Women\u2019s\nRights Without Frontiers<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

United Nations Human Rights\nCouncil, Geneva<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Palais des Nations, June 25,\n2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honorable Dignitaries, Ladies and Gentlemen,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            It\nis an honor to address you concerning one of the greatest women\u2019s rights issues\nof our day:  the abandonment of\nbaby girls and elderly widows in China \u2013 unintended consequences of China\u2019s One\nChild Policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Next\nyear will mark the 25-year review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for\nAction, adopted in 1995 at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on\nWomen.  Since this Platform was\nadopted in Beijing, the Chinese government should have been a world leader in\nthe advancement of women\u2019s rights articulated in that document.   Instead, Beijing itself has been\nthe most aggressive violator of the Platform that bears its name.  The Chinese government needs to be held\naccountable for its massive violations of the rights of women and girls, from\nthe day the Beijing Platform was adopted until today.  The Beijing Platform at Paragraph 115 states unequivocally:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

115. Acts of violence against women also include forced sterilization and forced abortion, coercive\/forced use of contraceptives, female infanticide and prenatal sex selection.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather\nthan fighting against these practices, the Chinese Communist Party has\nsystematically implemented them. \nIn so doing, it has committed violence against women in unprecedented\nproportions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gendercide<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Beijing Platform states that \u201cdiscrimination and violence against girls begin at the earliest stages of life and continue unabated throughout their lives\u201d and characterizes prenatal sex selection is an act of violence against women.  This violence begins with the termination of girl children, followed by a gender imbalance where, in China for example, there are an estimated 37 million more men than women. This imbalance is the driving force behind human trafficking and sexual slavery, not only within China but from the surrounding countries, and from as far away as Africa and the Americas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are an estimated 200 million women and girls missing in the world today, because of sex-selective abortion, abandonment and fatal neglect.  That number, 200 million, is greater than all the casualties of all the wars in the 20th<\/sup> Century.  This is the true War Against Women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gendercide continues under China\u2019s Two-Child Policy.  Because of violent son-preference, second daughters are especially vulnerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            For\nexample, after the institution of the Two-Child Policy, a woman from Anhui\nProvince was forced by her husband to abort four baby girls.  The couple already had a daughter, and\nwhen China shifted from a One Child to a Two Child Policy in January 2016, the\nhusband decided that they should have a second child, and that their second\nchild must be a boy.  In July 2017,\nthe woman died<\/a> after\nthese four abortions in quick succession, trying for a son.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            It is this problem of violent son-preference that we have sought to through our \u201cSave a Girl\u201d Campaign, which has saved hundreds of baby girls from sex-selective abortion, abandonment or extreme poverty in rural China.  We are the only organization in the world that has boots on the ground in rural China, going to the doors of women, offering them words of encouragement and financial support to empower them to keep their daughters, instead of being pressured to abort or abandon them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            We\nrecently released a video about our \u201cSave a Girl\u201d Campaign.  It really brings to life the struggles\nof women in the Chinese countryside to resist pressure to abort or abandon\ntheir daughters, and how Women\u2019s Rights Without Frontiers is providing them\nwith a lifeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gendercide in China; \u201cSave a Girl\u201d video (7 mins) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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