FRIDAYAugust 25, 2000 volume 11, no. 150
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NEWS for Friday, August 25, 2000 BEIJING, Aug. 24 (CWNews.com)
Reports of a particularly
cruel enforcement of Communist China's one-child policy
have outraged the population and caused a provincial
government to make an unusual pledge to punish those
responsible.
According to the reports, an official in central Hubei
province had determined that a woman, identified only as
Mrs. Liu, would be required to abort her fourth child to
comply with the government's population control policy. She
was forcibly injected with a saline solution to kill the
child, but the child was unexpectedly born healthy.
Immediately after the birth, the father was ordered to kill
the baby outside the hospital, but he was unable to carry
out the deed and left the child behind a building. A doctor
later found the infant and reunited him with his mother and
told her to take him home. When they arrived at their house
they were confronted by officials who took the baby outside
and drowned him in a rice paddy in front of his parents.
The outcry in the town alerted nearby newspapers and the
story soon gathered national attention which forced the
Hubei government to pledge it would punish the officials.
China's one-child policy, often ignored in rural areas, but
officially supported by international agencies including the
United Nations, has often been derided as inhuman and brutal
as tales of mothers strapped to beds for forced abortions
and infanticide have filtered out of the country.
Last month Zhang Weiqing, Beijing's Family Planning
Minister, said he would not tolerate officials abusing
women in order to achieve birth control targets. He said:
"We have a strict policy. We deal with every violation by
officials seriously."
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