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Population Control

April 26, 2006
December 21, 2012

Villagers in Gaoping county in Hunan province have accused local population planning officials of taking 12 children away from their parents and demanding money for their return, according to a March 21 South China Morning Post (SCMP) article (subscription only). The villagers claim that since 2002 local population planning officials have taken four girls from their biological parents, seven girls from their adoptive parents, and one boy. Villagers claim that officials demanded money for the return of the children, which they were unable to raise, and that when villagers presented their complaints officials detained and beat some of them. About 60 villagers signed a petition demanding the children's return. Officials returned only one child, the boy, reportedly after a National People’s Congress (NPC) delegate intervened.


March 30, 2006
December 21, 2012

The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) government will keep the region’s population within 22 million people by the end of 2010, according to news from a XUAR population and family planning work meeting on February 13 that was reported February 14 on Tianshan Net. The XUAR has one of the highest rates of population increase among provincial-level areas in China, and Han migration to the region has been the primary cause of the XUAR's population growth in the past 50 years. The article noted that floating and migrant populations will continue to contribute to the region's population growth, but it reported that the government will carry out its population planning policy by continuing measures to control birth rates.


March 1, 2006
December 21, 2012

Several hundred villagers protested and clashed with public security officials on February 5 in Dongshigu village, Linyi city, Shandong province, as officials beat and detained villager Chen Hua, according to a February 6 Reuters report. Chen received the official mistreatment after he came near the heavily-guarded home of human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who brought international news media attention in 2005 to violent abuses by Linyi population planning officials. Villagers overturned police vehicles and public security officials called for reinforcements and threw stones at the villagers, according to a February 8 Ming Pao report.


February 28, 2006
December 21, 2012

The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has one of the highest rates of population increase among Chinese provinces, according to information from a January 23 work meeting on the population and environment reported January 24 on Tianshan Net. While the birth rate and natural rate of increase have held steady in the past five years, the population continues to grow by about 300,000 people annually, the article reported. The article noted that the floating and migrant populations, among other groups, will maintain a relatively fast rate of increase.


February 25, 2006
December 21, 2012

Local officials beat blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng and unidentified assailants also attacked a group of lawyers visiting him October 4 in Chen's home village in Shandong province, according to an October 5 report by Radio Free Asia. Lawyers Xu Zhiyong, Li Subin, and Li Fangping travelled to Chen's home village of Dongshigu to speak with him on October 4. Officials have held Chen under house arrest since September 6 for publicizing abuses by local population planning officials. Boxun reported (in Chinese) that the lawyers reached Dongshigu on October 4, but local officials prevented them from entering the village.


February 8, 2006
December 21, 2012

According to a report in the Beijing News, Guilin city (Guangxi province) has instituted lower educational fees for agricultural laborers (nongye renkou) adhering to the one-child policy. Those families with one child receive a 20 percent reduction in school fees, while those with two girls receive a 10 percent reduction.

The reforms reflect the efforts of some Chinese localities to shift toward incentive-based systems in the implementation of the one-child policy to reduce and to help address the severely distorted male-female ratios among Chinese children. Guangxi province has 125.57 male children born for every 100 female ones, significantly higher than the national rate of 116.86 to 100.


October 3, 2005
December 11, 2012

Dr. Yu Xuejun, a spokesman for the National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC), acknowledged reports of abuses by local population planning officials in Linyi city, Shandong province, according to the September 20 edition of the China Daily and the NPFPC's Web site. Dr. Yu also confirmed that the government had dismissed and detained some of the responsible officials. Yu's statement said, "some persons did commit practices that violated [the] law and infringed upon legitimate rights and interests of citizens while conducting family planning work. Currently the responsible persons have been removed from their posts. Some of them are being investigated for liabilities and some have been detained. Competent authorities will further address the issue in line with their statutory mandates and procedures.


February 4, 2005
December 10, 2012

According to a report in the February 3 People’s Daily, the Nanjing city government issued a confidential document recently that adds to the circumstances under which parents may apply for government approval to have a second child. The seven situations outlined in the document seem to relax previously more stringent family planning rules, and generally follow the legal and policy approach of the national-level Population and Family Planning Law of 2001. The Jiangsu provincial government has already approved the Nanjing document. At the provincial level, Chapter 3 of the Jiangsu Provincial Population and Family Planning Regulation provides for other situations in which parents may apply to have a second child. These laws and rules may be the result of increased public pressure for exceptions, albeit within confines of a national policy of continuing restrictions on births.


Link
January 25, 2005
March 1, 2013

According to an article appearing on the Ministry of Justice Web site and citing education officials, new regulations now being drafted will lift longstanding prohibitions against the marriage and pregnancy of both undergraduate and graduate students. Over the past few years, many Chinese schools have relaxed restrictions on student marriages to varying extents, but bans on student pregnancies remain common. Women students who become pregnant, including graduate students wishing to have children before finishing their studies, often risk expulsion. If passed, the amended regulations would be a positive step in ensuring that Chinese students have the right to choose when to start a family.


November 29, 2004
March 1, 2013

Human Rights in China (HRIC) reports that security officials continue to torture Mao Hengfeng, an opponent of China's coercive family planning policies. Sentenced in April 2004 to one-and-a-half years of reeducation through labor (RETL) for petitioning the government after she was fired for resisting pressure to have an abortion, Ms. Mao was tortured by RETL authorities at a Shanghai camp, see an October 2004 HRIC report. HRIC now has learned that camp authorities have since stepped up their mistreatment of Ms. Mao, evidently to coerce her into acknowledging wrongdoing.