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WORLD NEWSFriday 30 October 2015
China to end decades-old 1-child policy, allow 2 children
LOUISE WATT Many rural families and that the decision was “to In this Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015, file photo, a child bends over in
Associated Press some urban ones already improve the balanced a public park in Yinchuan in northwestern China’s Ningxia Hui
BEIJING (AP) — China said were able to have two chil- development of popula- autonomous region.
Thursday it would allow all dren. tion” and to deal with an
married couples to have The news elated 36-year- aging population. The of- Associated Press
two children, signaling old Su Weihua of Guang- ficial Xinhua News Agency
the end after 35 years to zhou, who said she now said the proposal must be rural couples were allowed icy change by China as a
its drastic and unpopular plans to get pregnant next approved by the top legis- two children if their firstborn “positive step,” but said it
“one-child” policy that has year and that she is eager lature before it is enacted, was a girl. Ethnic minorities did not go far enough.
been blamed for skewing for her 8-year-old daughter which is essentially a for- are also allowed more than “We also look forward to
the gender balance, forc- to have a sibling. mality. It gave no indica- one child. the day when birth limits are
ing women into unwant- “I have looked forward to tion of when that would Chinese families with a abandoned altogether,”
ed abortions and bring- this for so many years — happen. The move may strong preference for boys said White House spokes-
ing about a rapidly aging even had dreams about not spur a huge baby have sometimes resorted man Josh Earnest, adding
workforce. it! I cried every time when boom, however, in part to aborting female fetuses, that the U.S. will keep work-
The decision was the most I woke up and realized it because fertility rates are a practice that has upset ing around the world to
significant easing of strict wasn’t yet true. I thought believed to be declining the ratio of male to female end coercive birth policies
population policies that it was so unfair,” Su said. “I even without the policy’s babies. China has rates of such as forced abortion
were long considered do not care if the second enforcement. Previous eas- up to 115 boys per 100 girls and sterilization.
some of the ruling Com- child is a boy or a girl, at my ings of the one-child policy at birth — compared with Amnesty International said
munist Party’s most oner- age, as long as he or she is have spurred fewer births what are considered nor- Chinese women remain at
ous intrusions into family healthy.” than expected, and many mal rates at birth of about risk of forced abortions and
life and had been gradu- The party’s Central Com- people among China’s 107 boys to 100 girls. intrusive forms of contra-
ally relaxed in recent years. mittee said in a statement younger generations see The imbalance makes it dif- ception.
smaller families as ideal. ficult for some men to find “The move to change
Demographers worry the wives, and is believed to China’s one-child policy is
change will not be in time fuel the trafficking of wom- not enough. Couples that
to reverse the declining en as brides. have two children could
fertility rate. Couples who broke the still be subjected to coer-
“The good news is, it is rules have been forced cive and intrusive forms of
here. The bad news is, it is to pay a fee in proportion contraception, and even
too little, too late,” said Cai to their income. In some forced abortions — which
Yong, a sociology profes- cases, rural families saw amount to torture,” William
sor at the University of North their livelihood in the form Nee, China Researcher at
Carolina at Chapel Hill. of their pigs and chickens Amnesty International, said
The statement followed taken away. in a statement.
the committee’s meeting Couples have at times In November 2013, the
this week to chart China’s been pressured to consent party announced it would
economic and social de- to abortions or sterilization allow couples to have two
velopment through 2020. by local family planning of- children if one parent was
In recent years, it has been ficials, or threatened with a single child. The deci-
unusual for such plenary the loss of their jobs if they sion announced Thursday
sessions to result in major work as teachers or in other removes all remaining re-
decisions. They generally public sector jobs. strictions limiting couples to
focus on economic top- The U.S. welcomed the pol- only one child.q
ics, and there was no indi-
cation that this one would
take action on the one-
child policy.
China, which has the
world’s largest population
at 1.4 billion people, intro-
duced the one-child poli-
cy in 1979 as a temporary
measure to curb a then-
surging population and
limit the demands for water
and other resources. Soon
after it was implemented,
