Press Release
Smith Guest on BBC to Discuss China's Draconian One-Child Policy & Its Announced ModificationsRep. Smith: Promised change is 'an extremely small step'
Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), chair of the House global human rights subcommittee and co-chair of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, was a guest on BBC to discussed China's brutal One Child Policy and the limited impact of the so-called revised one-child policy announced by China Nov. 15.
“The announced minimal change in China’s one-child policy is grossly inadequate in light of the coercion they have employed for three decades against women and children,” Smith said. “Left unchanged is the Chinese government’s strangle-hold on deciding who can have children, when they can have children and how many children a family can have.
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“The policy does nothing to address the regular use of forced abortion, when women are dragged into clinics where their children are then killed. “Until the Chinese government abolishes all coercion in their population control program, until they eliminate once and for all the use of forced abortion, its program will still be the most draconian in the world,” he said. Smith cited reports indicating that it was not new-found respect for fundamental human rights that brought the minimal change, but rather the government’s desire to bolster its own economy and power. “Perhaps motivated by the tens of millions fewer girls than boys as well as the ticking social time bomb of an aging population with fewer new workers and family members to care for the elderly, the token policy change now only allows a second child to live if that child has an urban-dwelling parent who is from a one child family. “This is currently allowed for rural families and does little to address the brutality of the program and the grave injustices Chinese women and families face if they seek to have children without government permission,” Smith said. |