Several victims of China's forced-abortion policy testified before a congressional subcommittee yesterday in support of a federal bill that would prevent anyone enforcing it — or their family members — from entering the U.S.
H.R. 2121, the China Democracy Promotion Act of 2011, was introduced this June by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights.
Since 1980, more than 400 million Chinese children have been aborted under the policy — 19 every minute, according to Chai Ling, founder of All Girls Allowed, a ministry that works with Chinese families.
"It is an insidious policy. To refuse would be illegal, but most unmarried women like me silently suffered the shame and tried to hide the secrets," said Ling, who aborted four babies. "That's why in that country, there is such a high female suicide rate — 500 women a day."
Though China is currently considering a two-child policy, Reggie Littlejohn, president of the advocacy group Women's Rights Without Frontiers, said that won't stop forced abortions, sterilizations and the other human-rights abuses involved in enforcing the policy, such as home demolitions, beatings, extended torture and murder.
"Much of the country already allows you to have two if your first child is a girl. That gives rise to gendercide," she pointed out. "It's not how many children are allowed. It's that the government is imposing its will on something that should be a family decision and the coercion with which it is enforced. In China, a woman's body is not her own. Until the officials stop functioning as womb police, the nation will not be free."
The congressional panel pledged to investigate whether American companies in China are complicit in the abuses.
"It's inconceivable that something like this would happen in the U.S., that a woman's fertility would be monitored and she might be subjected to an inspection on a factory floor. That's not work — that's slavery. We cannot be complicit in this," said Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb.
Because of the one-child policy, China now suffers from a gender imbalance that could mean 24 million men can't find wives by 2020. Girls are selectively aborted or abandoned, and the shortage has made China a go-to destination for sex traffickers bringing in women from other countries.
Contact: Karla Dial
Source: CitizenLink
