CHINA: The Effects of the One Child Policy
China is an excellent example of a country with a true population explosion. There is roughly 1.3 billion people living in China, although experts believe it is probably more like 1.6 billion. With all these people living in China it is no surprise that the government wants to control the country's population total. If the growth of the country’s population had continued to grow there would have been a severe shortage of food. To stop the rapid growth of the population, the government introduced the ‘one child policy’ in 1979. Their aim was to try and control the amount of babies born each year. The number of babies born annually is roughly about 21 million. The following report will explain the effects of the one child policy on the parents and the child born. My report will particularly focus on the horrendous Chinese orphanages, and the way in which the children living there are treated.
The one child policy was introduced in China in the year 1979. The leader of China at that time was Deng Xiaoping. This was the person who introduced this controversial new policy. The reason why the government introduced this was to try and control the total population of the country. This policy has produced two outcomes: the first being the reduction in the number of births per family and the second being the increase of the number of boys and the decrease of girls born. This meant that every family could have just one child.
Couples who want to try and have a baby have to attend a meeting in their village. It is here in which local ‘advisors’ will hopefully give the couple permission to have a child. Once they have permission from these local ‘advisors’ they can then submit a request for a birth permit. Couples must get a birth permit before the women actually becomes pregnant. The word birth permit in China is called a Sheng U Seng. If a woman is found pregnant without a birth permit a number of things may happen to her. She may be pressurised into having an abortion. Another possibility is that she could be arrested and then locked up. Her husband could also be arrested and put in jail. A lady might be in hospital getting, for example, an ingrown toenail sorted out when doctors discover she is pregnant without a birth permit. An abortion would then be carried out on her without her knowledge or consent. Other things that might happen is that as soon as the baby is born it is given a lethal injection in the fontanel (the soft spot on the baby’s head). This injection would kill the baby.
A couple who have a genetic disorder are not allowed to have a baby. They have to be sterilised by law in China. If they refuse they could have their houses burnt down. They may also be branded as criminals!
Some women are forced into having a lethal injection into the baby in their womb before delivery; some as late as 38 or 39 weeks into pregnancy (pregnancy usually lasts 40 weeks).
The government also appoints a neighbourhood ‘granny’ for every village. The granny is usually an elderly women who has lived in the village for most or all of her life. It is the responsibility of this lady to make sure that no unlawful births take place, and that ever women in the village is taking the contraceptive pill.
In rural areas the policy was relaxed in the 80’s. This happened because the government realised that more men were needed to farm the land. A second birth permit could be applied for if the first child was born female or was a handicapped boy.
Due to the government’s strict policy of one child per family, many problems have arisen. As Chinese couples can only have one child they want a boy rather than a girl. They would prefer a boy as the boy can carry the family on to the next generation. If Chinese couples had a girl the baby would probably be abandoned at an orphanage, killed or just left somewhere to die. If the baby girls are left at an orphanage they are not treated well. I will explain this more, later on in the report under the heading State Orphanages.
The Chinese people dislike girls but love boys. When couples have a boy there are fireworks and a big party, whereas if a girl is born she is sometimes not even given a name. She is instead just called Lai Di or Jao Di which means no name. There are about 6 million girls in China called this.
Another reason why girls are preferred to boys is because there is no pension scheme available for the elderly. The son and his wife are meant to provide money for his parents, otherwise they could face starvation when they are too old to work. Whereas if a girl is born, when she marries her husband she is said to have left to join her husbands family so she cannot look after her own parents.
On the video a man is said to have called girls ‘maggots in the rice’. This basically means he thinks that girls are worthless and are eating food that should go to the boys.
When this generation of Chinese grow up there will be far more boys than girls. So this means that there will not be enough ladies to be wives.
In Chinese state orphanages the children who live there are either girls or handicapped boys. You would never find a healthy boy in an orphanage. Most babies in the orphanage would not be orphans but actually abandoned at birth by their parents. In these orphanages children and babies are badly treated. The death rate in these orphanages is 50%.
Children here are not given any love, care or attention. Little babies are left in cots all day long! They are often cold, smelly, unwashed and very wet. There could be up to about 5 babies in a cot. One right next to another. Most of these babies were crying, although some didn’t seem to even have the strength to do that! The toddlers in the orphanage were tied to small chairs above a potty all day. Here they sat and rocked back and forth all the time. As they were so tightly strapped to the chairs this was the only movement they could make. Worse than this was potty benches. These were long wooden benches with holes cut into them for the children to use the potty. Like the potty chairs, the children are strapped to them all day.
In one case on the video an orphanage had had 400 babies dumped there that year. The camera crew could only count 12 babies there. The first being the babies had died and the second being they had been adopted. It was very unlikely that the babies had been adopted so that meant that an astounding 388 babies had died!
The film crew moved on to a second orphanage. It was during
summer and as you would expert there was no air conditioning. Temperatures were extremely hot. In this orphanage were babies, 5 per cot. In these cots at least one would die because of the heat. Just one person was looking after these babies.
According to the Chinese government the Shanghai orphanage is the best in the country. However when the film crew looked at the orphanage records, a very different situation they saw. 4 out of every 5 children put in the orphanage would die within the year they were admitted. That’s 90%!
The workers in the orphanage are not given any training so it is no wonder that the children are badly treated.
Although state orphanages are terrible places not all orphanages are like that. Private orphanages are nice places. These are run by charities. Babies and children are treated well. They are well fed, well clothed, and toys are available for them to play with. The children are very happy, they are shown love, care and attention. Exactly the opposite of state orphanages. If people want to, they can come and adopt a child and live as a family there. Many local look in to the private orphanage and wish that they lived there!
Summary resolution means the deliberate choosing of children to die. The nursing staff at the state orphanages decide who should live and who should die. They decide by sitting down and talking about which children they like and dislike. The types of children most at risk of summary resolution are the handicapped, children with walking disabilities, children who are ill a lot, very young babies who need to be bottle fed, children who have a disease of some sort, children with pneumonia or intestinal bleeding, children who are dirty or naughty, children who are irritating or even children who are considered to be not nice looking.
Once the nursing staff have selected the children to die, they are separated from the rest of the children in the orphanage. These children are deliberately neglected. The nursing staff badly treat and abuse these poor children. They are given less food and water so they die slowly. They do this because they couldn’t just shoot them, so this way they can say the children died of natural causes. If the children become ill during summary resolution they aren’t given any medication. A child would have a long painful death. The children end up being starved to death, and the death rate goes up every year.
Mei Ming (No Name) is an example of summary resolution. In the video she was kept in a dark room with blankets piled on top of her face and body so she could hardly breath. She was scarily thin and had a severe eye infection which has caused her to be blind. She had liver failure and vitamin deficiency. When later on that day the crew phoned the orphanage and asked to help Mei Ming the orphanage denied her existence! Four days later she sadly died.
This case is not isolated, this happens all over China every day of the year.
The children who cannot be kept in a cot like Mei Ming are seriously beaten. Nursing staff use anything to hit the children with. They are usually hit around the head with legs of chairs or sticks. These are very severe and dangerous blows that lead to serious injury.
The children are sometimes made to stand in either one of these two positions - the ‘motorbike’ or the ‘aeroplane’. They are forced to stand like this for hours upon end and if they move, even just a tiny little bit, they are immediately beaten by the nursing staff. This is very difficult to do and becomes very sore after a short period of time.
To stop the children creaming out or crying out for food a number of steps are taken. Children can be tied to the bed and gagged so they can’t move or speak. They may also be given lots of sleeping pills or injected with sedatives which put them to sleep.
Nurses can’t do anything to help these children. If they object to the treatment being given to the children they are sacked, but if the nurses abuse the children they are promoted!
In conclusion my report has shown that China has very poor human rights. Of all of China’s people women and girls are regarded as worthless human beings. One man in the video said that "women are like dresses, if you don’t like it you just throw it away". It is attitudes like this that has made China not appreciate the female gender. When couples are having a baby they always want a boy, not a girl. They will sometimes have the girl killed or given away to an orphanage. As a result of this there will be an imbalance in the number of men to women. By the end of the last century (1999) there was 70 million single men in China.
As I’ve previously stated children who are put in orphanages get abused and sometimes are left to die. These are called dying rooms. The Chinese government denies that these rooms exist.
Another abuse of human rights is that prisoners are executed so that people can have organ transplants.
All of the above are abuses of human rights. China tries to cover up these things but because of modern technology like the internet we are finding out what really happens in this country. People inside China are scared to speak out against their communist government as they are afraid as to what might happen to them. There must be more international pressure on China to change their ways. If there isn’t then China won’t change their policies.
The Chinese government is now trying to promote equal rights for women, but it will take a long time for men to begin to think of women as people and not just someone to have their children and cook their meals.
If I was able to change the way of life in China this is what I would do:
If these were to become law I think China would become a much better place to live.