China a developing country and the Chinese one child policy.
In the 1970s China’s population was growing at an alarming rate, nearing and later surpassing one billion people. Those in China’s government began to fear for the welfare of the nation as a whole, asking themselves how can the country support their growing population? Their answer was that the country would not be able to function if the population continued to grow as this rate so it was necessary to find a way to decrease the growth rate. In order to control the population the Chinese government, in 1979, created the one-child policy (Gregory, 1992). This one-child policy was originally supposed to be a short term solution to the problem of a quickly growing population (Hesketh, 2005). The question that needs to be asked is that although the policy is intended to benefit the country in the long run is it ethical, does it allows for many violations of human rights? Do the potential benefits of decreasing the population growth rate out weigh the harms that the policy can cause?
The policy called for government support of the use of contraceptives, abortion and sterilization. The government also provided economic incentives for those that did comply with the policy. This policy is set up to “encourage” couples to only have one child. Many people are under the understanding that this policy is a law in communist China, this is not the case. The policy is strongly encouraged, giving more aid and resources to families that promise to abide by the policy. Families that agree to only have one child came receive many benefits and priority treatment from the government. Some of these benefits include prioritization in school and hospitals as well and food and other goods necessary to survival. A family that signs the one child pledge is qualified to receive financial benefits from the government as a type of reward. The family can receive five percent of the workers pay from the time that they sign until the time that the child reaches the age of fourteen (Hesketh, 1997). If a family does not abide by the one-child policy they do not receive these benefits, in fact hey receive the opposite treatment as a form of punishment. The families that do not follow the one child policy are forced to pay for all of their expense on their own and may have to pay extra fines to the government. Without this help from the government those who live in the many poverty stricken areas of China cannot survive. A few couples are sometimes able to circumvent the policy and have more than one child. There are couples who have a reason for the birth of another child, some of these reasons are that the first child has an extreme disability or if the parents work in high risk environments where their lives may by endangered. Even if the family has one of these factors the likelihood of being granted that coveted second child is rare.
This policy has created debate and controversy since it was instated in the late 1970s. Much of the debate stems from shifting opinions on the purpose of the government. Should the government care more about protecting the people’s individual human rights or the welfare of the society as a whole? Also, if one were to state that the government should care more for the individuals’ rights, do this policy actually violate the family’s reproductive rights. Statements that have come out of international conventions on human rights deals with some of these issues. International declarations state that it is the “government’s responsibility for ensuring the social and economic advancement of their peoples” (Gregory, 1992). Many of the results of the conventions also state that the right of a person to decide their own reproduction should also be protected. The Chinese government has had to weight these two ideas against each other to determine the best course for the country. China found it necessary to hold first the welfare of the state and hold second the rights of the individual. Its is not only whether freedom of reproduction as a universal human right or not that is the only human right issue others have developed over the course of the policy in the last three decades. This need to keep that family to only one child has had many consequences among them are in increase in abortions and the sterilization of women. For fear on having another child many women are forced into sterilization by pressures from the family and the government. The culture of the Chinese people also places a higher value on the male children than on the female children. This has also lead to an increase in the infanticide of female infants. A mother might choose to end the life of the female child in order to later have a male child in order to appeal to the dominate culture.
One human rights issue stemming from the right to decide ones own reproduction and right over ones own body comes from forced sterilization. On story published in 2006 by the Voice of America News deals with this issue. In this story a woman was force to undergo sterilization surgery only four days after giving birth to her child. The reason for this was the woman, Mrs. Yao, had just given birth to her second child but her husbands first (Experts:…, 2006). This news story gives a personal touch to this issue helping people to view this policy with a skeptic’s eye.
Because of this policy the lives of many married couples in China is different from many married couples in other developed countries. Statistics show that in China 87 percent of married women use contraception, in other developed countries the number is closer to 33 percent (Hesketh, 2005). Long term contraception is the method that most of these couples are taking to prevent conception more permadently. The methods of sterilization and intrauterine devices make up 90 percent of all methods used (Hesketh, 2005). In choosing the method that couples should use it is interesting to find that the couple themselves do not have many or any options, their family planning worker usually makes the recommendation that is followed (Hesketh, 2005).
Even rights that many people would see as basic are taken away as a result of this policy. In China some businesses monitor when each of their female employees have their period. When a woman misses their period the government has a right to demand to know the reason for the interruption in her menstrual cycle. This need to control the actions of the citizens of China goes so far as to deeply invade the privacy of the female population (Jowett, 1991). Those who gain knowledge of women who miss their period are encouraged through financial gains to report the woman.
Another human right problem that has arisen over the last 25 years that the policy has been active stems from the dominate culture that favors male children. Because of technology that has developed since the policy was enacted it is now possible to detect the sex of the child earlier in the pregnancy. Although it is technically illegal to terminate a pregnancy because the gender of the child is not male statistics show that a greater number of pregnancies in which the child was female simple “disappear” (Hesketh, 2005). Another issue results from the favoritism of male children; this is the ratio of males to females. Males are starting to outnumber the females in a proportion that is creating problems for marriage. Since there are a greater number of males in the Chinese population a larger number of males are left without a bride. This has had an effect on the number of women being trafficked into and around the country to become Chinese brides (Hesketh, 2005). The trafficking of human person is a crime that has increase dramatically over the last few decades. An aspect of that is that women are being trafficked in and out of many Asian countries for reason such as the sex trade and to be sold as brides for men.
China has implemented this policy in an effort to control the population in order to control and stabilize the economic system in China. The idea behind the one child policy is that if two parents only have one child then the population will decrease instead of the immense increase that China faces. Since the introduction of the one child policy almost thirty years ago the population has see a change, but the change has not been the opposite change the the policy was predicted to have. Though the population growth rate have decrease the populations is still growing at an estimated rate or about 10 million people each year. It seems as though the policy is not working in the manner that it was intended. If one looks at the change in he nature of China’s economic situation as well and changes in the Chinese culture it is possible to see that the policy is not the only reason for the decreasing population growth rate. The culture itself is infusing many western values including smaller family size. This along with changes in the economy can help to explain why the growth rate has decreased.
With other explanations for the positive changes accounting for the change in the growth rate it asked the question again do the changes as a result of the policy affect the nature enough to out weigh the negative side effects that result for the policy. The human rights impacts on the policy cannot be ignored. The abuses of women and their bodies that the government turns a blind eye to in order to serve there greater purpose of population reduction. With a population that is as poor as the Chinese population imposing fines and economic hardships on the population cannot help them advance in the world. With the trend in the Chinese culture to not have as many children and to focus on advancing economically the need for policies such as the one child policy is no longer needed.
The human rights issues that the policy deals with are numerous. Forced abortions and sterilizations, infancide, invasions of privacy and most importantly the right for a person to reproduce in the manner that they wish are all on the list for human rights violations by the standards of a great deal of the world. Putting pressure on a woman to abort her child or forcing her to undergo sterilization procedures is not something that the world should continue to allow. Because the government does not condone any of this much of the world sits by and lets more of these violations occur every day. People from different parts of the world have different cultures and values which lead to differences in opinions about what should be a basic human right. If the culture that this policy impact did not place high values on the family and carrying the family line through having children it would be easier to understand why a government would choose to not consider the right to reproduce as a basic right, but this culture does value children so it is hard to understand why the government would impose this policy on its people.
References
“China's Overpopulation Problems and the One Child Policy” July 22, 2002. http://www.library.utoronto.ca/east/students02/vienna_wong/index.htm
Experts: China's One-Child Population Policy Producing Socio-Economic Problems. Copyright 2006 Federal Information and News Dispatch, Inc. Voice of America News. March 7, 2006
“Human Rights UN Briefing Papers Today: A United Nations Priority.” Internet by the Information Technology Section. Department of Public Information. Copyright© United Nations. December 1998 http://www.un.org/rights/HRToday/index.html
Gregory, Lisa B. Examining the Economic Component of China's One-Child Family Policy Under International Law: Your Money or Your Life The Journal of Asian Law Volume 06, Number 1, Fall 1992 (Economics) http://www.columbia.edu/cu/asiaweb/v6n1greg.htm
Hesketh, Therese, Lu, Li, and Xing, Zhu Wei. “The Effect of China's One-Child Family Policy after 25 Years” New England Journal of Medicine; 9/15/2005, Vol. 353 Issue 11, p1171-1176, 6p. www.ebscohost.com
Hesketh T, Zhu WX. The one child family policy: the good, the bad, and the ugly. BMJ 1997;314:1685-1687
Jowett, A.J. “China: The one, two, three, four and more child policy.” Focus; Summer91, Vol. 41 Issue 2, p32, 5p, 4c www.ebscohost.com
Magnarella, Paul J. “Review Article Communist Chinese and Asian Values Critiques of Universal Human Rights.” Journal of Third World Studies, Fall2004, Vol. 21 Issue 2, p179-192, 14p www.ebscohost.com (Political Science)
Rosenberg, Matt. “China's One Child Policy: Designed to Limit Population Growth.” About Geography. Feb 7, 2006. http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/onechild.htm