HRIC: One-Child Policy Opponent Tortured

October 6, 2004

Human Rights in China reports that a Shanghainese woman, Mao Hengfeng, has reportedly been subjected to torture and abusive treatment because of her public protests against China’s official one-child policy. According to HRIC, Mao has been engaged in a 15-year struggle for redress since she was dismissed from her factory job for refusing to have an abortion. HRIC reports that, because Mao refused to give up her petitioning, in April 2004 the Shanghai Public Security Bureau sentenced her to 18 months of Reeducation Through Labor.