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The title is a
bit misleading, but it caught my eye. Note attitudes changing with younger
generation, hopefully not too late. KwC Chinese facing jail to protect
unborn girls CHINA plans to jail
anyone who helps prospective parents to learn the sex of their unborn child, in
an attempt to halt the abortion of female foetuses. It is already illegal to scan a foetus to discover its
gender. But an amendment submitted to the standing committee of the National
People’s Congress, or parliament, will mean up to three years in jail and heavy
fines for anyone helping with gender selection. It is rare for the parliament
not to pass a Bill. Most couples are
limited by law to just one child. Many, especially in the countryside, yearn
for a son to work the land, provide for parents and carry on the family name.
Many rural clinics provide unauthorised ultrasound scans to determine the sex
of the foetus and parents generally abort daughters. As a result, the ratio of boys to girls now stands at
119 to 100,
significantly higher than the world average of 106 to 100. In southern
provinces such as Hainan and Guangdong the imbalance is as high as 130 boys per
100 girls, despite numerous incentives offered to farmers to stop them aborting
daughters. As part of a drive to
reduce the gender imbalance to 105 to 100 by 2010, slogans are daubed on
village walls across the country, reading: “Daughters
are as good as sons.” A Care for Girls campaign ensures free schooling for females and provides
tax breaks and other privileges to their families. But parents still slip
money to doctors or nurses to learn the sex of their unborn child. For a boy,
parents may pay £7, or £4 if the foetus is female. The owner of one illegal
clinic hidden in a huge vegetable market on the outskirts of Beijing told the Beijing Times: “Ninety-nine percent of the
women who ask for an abortion are those who have found out they are carrying a
girl.” An estimated 500,000
babies are abandoned in China each year, 95 per cent of them healthy females. Li Li, a doctor from
the First People’s Hospital of Datong in the northern Shanxi province, told The Times: “It’s usually the grandparents who want to know the sex. The younger generation
don’t care so much.
If they do ask I just tell them that I couldn’t see the sex and I’m too busy to
waste my time on a matter of so little importance.” But many do tell. Official estimates say that China has
almost 13 million more boys than girls under 9. By 2020 it could have 40
million frustrated bachelors. Selling women for wives is growing and traffickers sell baby girls to wealthy couples
to ensure that their son will be able to marry when he grows up. China is unlikely to
relax its tough one-child policy, which was introduced in 1979 to curb
population growth in the world’s most populous country. China now has 1.3 billion people instead
of a projected 1.6 billion.
The number is expected to peak at 1.5 billion in 2033. There are 90 million one-child couples. Having a second can incur such
punishments as hefty fines, higher taxes, dismissal or forced sterilization. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-1959596,00.html |
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