Status of Women

On April 14, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) will convene a hearing to examine China’s systemic use of torture and maltreatment in the criminal justice system. Torture experts have concluded that the lack of a definition of torture in China’s legal code is highly problematic. There are also well-documented cases of the frequent use of “tiger chairs” during interrogation and other forms of torture to coerce confessions from criminal defendants and political prisoners alike; reports of deaths in custody and the lack of adequate medical treatment in detention; and the abuse and mistreatment in detention of individuals from China’s ethnic minorities, including Tibetans and Uyghurs.

The CECC will examine the social, economic, and political implications of gendercide in China. The cultural preference for boys, exacerbated by China’s birth-limitation policies, has led to millions of girls being aborted and killed over the past several decades. As a result, China faces some of the world’s most severe gender imbalances—according to official estimates, there are currently 34 million more males than females in China. Demographic experts have warned that China’s large number of “surplus males” could lead to societal instability, higher crime rates and sexual violence, and increased trafficking of women and girls.

After 35 years of brutal enforcement of the one-child policy, the Chinese Communist Party announced in late October that a universal two-child policy will be adopted, allowing all married Chinese couples to have two children. The policy change was driven by serious demographic concerns currently facing China—a rapidly aging population, a shrinking labor force, and a dramatic gender imbalance that drives regional human trafficking problems and potentially higher levels of crime and societal instability. Central authorities continue to insist that family planning will continue to be a “fundamental national policy” and many unanswered questions remain about implementation of the policy.

China’s infamous “One-Child Policy” marks its 35^th anniversary this year. It has been called the world’s largest social experiment and has had tragic effects on Chinese families and society. Coercive population control policies are also the cause of a demographic time bomb. China has a rapidly aging population, a shrinking labor force, and a dramatic gender imbalance that drives regional human trafficking problems and potentially higher levels of crime and societal instability. China’s central government has started to gently revise its population control policies in the past year, though the overall policy and the huge bureaucracy that enforces it remain intact.