Study Confirms China Forced Abortion Policy Created Gender Imbalance

Beijing, China (LifeNews.com) -- A new study has confirmed what observers of China's family planning policies have suspected for years. By forcing women to have abortions, sterilizing them and targeting them and their families for persecution has caused a severe gender imbalance that's resulted in sexually exploiting women, higher crimes and other social concerns.

Conducted by Qu Jian Ding of the Institute of Population Studies at Zhejiang University and Therese Hesketh of London's Institute of Child Health, the study finds men in the Asian nation overwhelmingly outnumber women.

The pair relied on data from 40,000 women and found that the birth rate dropped from 2.9 children before China enacted its one-child family planning policy in 1979.

The study found women above the age of 35 have 1.94 children and women under the age of 35 have 1.73 children. Both rates are below replacement level for a nation to sustain its population.

According to a Reuters report, the pair's study found that the male-female gender imbalance moved from 1.11 in 1980-89 to 1.23 in 1996-2001.

The findings also confirm that sex-selection abortions and infanticides have been used to generate boy babies since Chinese culture, especially in rural areas, favors boys over girls.

"These findings have clear implications for decisions about future population policy," the authors wrote in the study, published in the most recent edition of the British Medical Journal.

"A relaxation of the policy could be considered in the near future," the researcher wrote, according to Reuters. "It is unlikely that a baby boom would result, and such a change in policy might help to correct the abnormal sex ratio."

The researchers also found that a majority of women wish they could have more than the one child the Chinese government allows.

About 35 percent of women studied said they want only one child, but 57 percent said they would want two and just under six percent wanted more than two children.

Chinese officials failed in June to approve a ban on sex-selection abortions, but the nation is still planning to continue its crackdown on using ultrasound machines to reveal the sex of an unborn baby for non-medical purposes.

In May, the Chinese government closed more than 200 clinics in the province of Hebei that were telling women the sex of their unborn children so they could have abortions of girl babies. The Shanghai Daily said there were 134 boys born for every 100 girls in Hebei.

Officials found 848 cases of sex-selection abortions occurring as a result of the clinics telling of the baby's gender.

The newspaper reported that 745 hospitals and clinics were involved in the investigation and, in addition to those closed, another 374 were fined. The government opened legal cases against three medical workers involved in arranging illegal abortions.

China now has 119 boys for ever 100 girls, a gender imbalance that is far from the normal 103-100 ratio seen in industrialized nations across the globe. The imbalance has given rise to a culture of massive sex-trafficking and the kidnapping of teenagers and young adults to be forced into marriage.

The country has also become a nation of bachelors as Chinese men have problems finding potential wives and starting families. This has contributed to a rise in crime, prostitution, and other problems.

Ironically, population control officials sent portable ultrasound machines to hundreds of cities across the nation in the early 1980s to make sure women who were required to wear a birth control device kept it in. The machines were later used to determine the sex of a baby for an abortion.

Chinese couples determined to have a son easily get around the new laws as a black market has sprung up of people with ultrasound machines in the trunks of cars or house closets are willing to divulge the sex of an unborn baby for a price.

Some Chinese are selling their girl babies to those seeking girls for their sons. Chinese officials have uncovered massive baby-selling schemes including finding newborns in bags in the back of trucks and on buses on their way to be sold.

The poor parents of unwanted newborn girls sell their babies for a little as $8.

"China now has 119 boys for ever 100 girls"

This is not completely true. This is an overall average and if you go out into the farm areas and into western China it is much much worse then this. As I have stated before on here I have lived in China for two years. I have a Chinese wife and will let you in on some of her family secrets here.

When she was born they did not want her. In China only a boy can take care of the parents when they get old, this is what they believe anyway. So to fool the government they gave my wife to her grandmother. For almost 10 years my grand mother raised her. They had another baby, a boy this time, and spent all their money and time raising him.

The government decided to give land to local farmers and determined how much land you got by how many you had living on the land. So the family went back and took my wife from the only mother she had ever known. She did not even know them. So the government gave them some land. A year later my new mother in law had another baby girl. This one they sold to someone. My wife has never seen her sister and does not know where she is. A year later her mother was going to have a nother baby but the police came and handcuffed her and forced her to have an abortion.

When it came time for me to marry my wife they asked me to give them 20,000 U.S. to buy her from them. I would not do it and to this day they do not talk to us. We have been kicked out of the family,BREAKS MY HEART. My wife is still close with her grandmother and I am allowed into that part of the family. My wife took our new baby boy to see her grandmother a few weeks ago. When she came home she told me the story of her cousin who just "got rid" of their new baby because it has one leg longer then the other. I asked her how they got rid of it and she did not know. I work with a group that takes care of abandoned babies. Mostly girls who have been dropped on the road but occasionally boys who have some defect.

After two years most of this does not shock me anymore but it always shocks me how matter of fact like my wife talks about it. She just seems to think that this is how life is and its not a big deal. She does much better now. After I have been teaching her how things should be she seems to understand now how horrible this stuff is.

As a teacher I try to teach my female students that this is an chance for them to assert some power in China. I tell them that they can make better choices now and they don't have to marry the first man who ask them. To choose the man who treats them the best. I try to convince them that they have some power now but few listen.

It is sad and I don't see much of this changing until China changes its 1 child policy. This may happen sooner then you think though. Much like the U.S. China is seeing a problem in the near future of an older population and not enough workers to pay for their social welfare programs.

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