Where are China's Baby girls???

[Crocus]

Have you perhaps heard on the news or read in the paper about the problem in China with their one-child policy? It apparently lead to the disappearance of "millions of baby girls in the 30 years since it was introduced"

According to statistics for every 100 girls there are 197 boys and it was mentioned that the town of Wuxue is the worst example of gender imbalance caused by sex-selective abortions, although it is the general pattern across the country. Traditionally couples prefer a son and this leads to brides being kidnapped which apparently is quite common in China.

I remember my mum mentioned this one-child policy in China quite a lot and it bothered her actually. Questions I have is why is it that boys are preferred above girls and where do parents think their boys will find wives or a woman to produce, once again, boys, their grand child - or don't they think that far?

This one-child policy 'prevented' a staggering 400-million births in 30 years - statistically it might sound like a good thing if one takes the world population into account, but to prefer boys who then struggle to find wives and have their own child is taking this a bit to far I think and might cause huge imbalances in future. It brings about a question about abortion again, in China's case where couples are willing to abort an innocent baby just because she's a little girl. It's kind of a double negative because not only does government force you to have only one child, but parents then, in general, are only interested having a boy. What if a couple have multiple pregnancies, all being girls and they are all aborted?!

[Ivy]

To have boys , traditionally ensured the "pension" of his parents, whereas girls "only cost money" and left the family to look after their husbands family.
In the old China it was a tradition to mourn the birth of a boy as if it was "only" a girl to deceive the Gods, in fear that they might like the little boy so much that they would take him away. This tradition led to the fact that boys for the first years had girl's hairstyles and clothes. Not even the Gods would bother to take a girl . If she died well it was tough luck .

[Crocus]

Strange thinking and 'tradition' I think because boys who "traditionally ensured the pension of parents", needed a mother to have been born! So, good enough then to have a mother and a wife, but not a daughter...... and if a girl has only costs money and probably got aborted, how did men think their boys or grandsons will be born?
I'm very grateful not to live in China.

[sunflower]

Women's hour recently interviewed a couple of Chinese young adult women and were asked their opinion regarding the one child policy. I cannot remember the first reply because I was busy cleaning, but the second woman replied that, she was grateful for the one child policy. Her parents had put all their energy and money into her upbringing and recieving a good education. She also felt obligated to do her best for her parents. However, nothing was mentioned about the girls being treated inferior. I think that was in the past, but since the one child policy, attitudes have moved forward. I have also heard that out in the country the one child policy is relaxed or overlooked.

[dragonfly]

I can understand why they have the policy but it seems a cruel one. To limit a couple to one child means that children have no siblings to grow up with, no aunts & uncles, and no cousins. It can't be much of a family life. I think it would be better to encourage couples to have a career instead of a family and let others have two maybe three children. I can't understand why a daughter is less valued than a son for often sons go away and have their own family and it is the daughters who look after aged parents.

[Crocus]

I understand the policy as well, but to abort a little girl just because she's the wrong sex to me is so cruel and heartbreaking.

[Ivy]

Recently the government has decided if your first child is a girl you are allowed to have a second one. Still the balance will be disturbed for at least two generations. The thing is that China now imports women form other Asian countries making up for their own lack of women. For me this all sounds like women were a kind of commodity and it really disgusts me.

[jazzactivist]

I was going to say that China has recently changed its policy about baby girls, Ivy, but the government and social attitude towards it isn't much better as girls and women are now just seen as functional to create future generations. It is odd given that most of the workers in China are women, but at least now they are considered to be very desirable so, in some ways, can name their price! It has also always been possible to have additional children if one or more are disabled, and it doesn't matter if they are boys or girls.

The one-child policy is relatively recent, 1979, and came about following the governance of Mao Tse Tung who had been trying to create a totally self-sufficient country after years of war with Japan and relationships with Western countries during WW2. He was convinced that the route to self-sufficiency was having enough people to take on work in the rural areas, where most food is grown, and that for China to become a world power alongside European countries that boys are needed to form a strong army for any future conflicts. The combination of Chinese and European history of treating women and girls as scond rate, plus Mao's population explosion and later government's values that a large population is the route to ruin, led to the one-child policy. Women and girls have always been treated as second-rate in most countries of the world and even now some societies still prefer boy children and choose to abort girls, and in some families in the UK there is still a bit more jubilation when a boy is born as a first child, much as people would like to deny it.

I think a one or two child policy is quite a good idea, so long as it covers both sexes equally, as it would be better if people in all countries only had as many children as the parents can afford to look after themselves right up to 18, and ensure that they had a very good start in life. It shouldn't be the case that parents say they can't afford this or that opportunity for their child because they have others to think of. I think the idea of the extended family where everyone regularly keeps in touch with one another isn't very common any more, so people have to be able to have the upbringing that is a good launchpad for their careers and to be able to make their own close friends and contacts to take the place of it. I think having children is driven too much by emotion and not enough long-term planning goes into it, so a government limit of that kind can help. It comes undone when other policy dictates inequality between the sexes, on top of that idea already being cultural within society though.

[Crocus]

I can understand the one-child policy to a certain extent, but what I don't like is the fact that boys are preferred above girls for reasons mentioned, and that innocent, healthy babies are aborted. That to me is totally wrong. We would've loved to have a girl, but things worked out differently. One can't just play with both the babies' and mothers' lives just because the baby is the wrong sex. x

[Ivy]

Crocus it is all about economics both mother's and girls are re-placeable in a system like China. Contraception is /was overlooked by state nurses who came knocking at the do to check if the woman had taken the pill that day. Any signs of pregnancies were reported and women dragged to the abortion if they didn't go voluntarily.

[jazzactivist]

I agree with abortion for unwanted pregnancies, as I think a woman's quality of life is more important, but I don't agree with selective abortion just to choose the sex of your child. There are private clinics in the UK that offer that, and while some couples just want a boy, others use it to choose the 'balance' of their family so that 2nd, 3rd, 4th children are either boys or girls. I think that's just as wrong. The problem with policies like the one child one is the way they are put into practice by civil servants and regional and local officials. Usually each region is allowed to put policy into practice as they see fit, so in some areas there will be a draconian interpretation based on what are considered to be mitigating social factors, while in others there will be a more voluntary approach on the basis that people will be aware enough to do the right thing if the opportunity is made available. No prizes for guessing which sectors of society get which approach.

[Crocus]

As I've said above somewhere, I'm very grateful that I don't live in China, as me. As a Chinese woman, well I suppose I would've gone with the rule of abortion then, but as me, oh dear no.

[jazzactivist]

I don't think China is all bad though, crocus. Women are treated as equals in the workplace, and aren't always the downtrodden victims as they are often portrayed. SA used to have the opposite system, with very draconian anti-abortion laws and women who had an unwanted pregnancy, even through rape, weren't allowed a legal and safe abortion. That's social engineering of a different kind.

[Crocus]

Yes, very true Jazz and taking the population into account, the one-child policy makes sense in a way, but what I don't agree with is aborting a baby just because she's a girl. She didn't ask to be conceived, but life is being denied her because a boy means more than she does. Strange thing is, boys must have mothers and girlfriends/wives to firstly, get born, and secondly to have a boy of their own one day, but if girls get aborted most of the time, they might find it hard to have a boy of their own. The report on Sky News mentioned that many women are abducted as brides and that by 2020, 50 million men won't be able to find a wife.

[Ivy]

the cynic in me says: if they aborted most boys , those few surviving boys would be able to have several wives and father many children . Whereas the shortage of women will lead to a further decline in Chinese population. Jazz I have to contradict about the equality in the workplace. Amnesty international mentioned a couple of months back that women in China are still underpaid and have harder working conditions compared to their male colleagues. This is the reason why so many women can be found in the so called sweat shops. Woking terrible hours having to pay their boss to be granted the privilege to sleep under the workbench on the bare concrete. In the factory they visited female workers are allowed to use the toilet once in 12 hours . Twice when they have their period, but they have to prove they are bleeding. The reporter dsaid this wasn't unusual cruelty of the boss but quite the norm.

[jazzactivist]

I agree that it seems a very short-sighted policy, crocus. But that's politics, unfortunately. It seems that most politicians all over the world never look further ahead than the period of their own election and make policies to suit it. Many women would say that it takes a male politician to come up with a policy that totally ignors the fact that women are needed to give birth, and they grow from girls!

I watched a documentary once about some women in China hiding their girl babies and also disabling their daughters in some small way so that they could keep their daughter and have another child. Their thinking was that they wanted to keep their daughters, but needed a son to help with the work and to get government benefits eg health care for boys and their mothers was free, but had to be paid for if the baby was a girl. This documentary was in the aftermath of the Dying Rooms scandal (1990s), when it was revealed that baby girls in China were being left in orphanages and not given food or water or taken care of just because they were girls, so they slowly died. Some friends of ours in Scotland adopted a baby girl from one of those orphanages following the documentary, which was a really difficult process. They were very traumatised by what they saw in China, even though there had been some improvements by then, and found it hard to choose one baby from the many. In the end the orphanage chose for them, but they were never convinced that the child they got was genuinely from the orphanage. She is a lovely young woman now, but never got a sister because the process of adoption was too difficult.

I think it would be possible to limit population growth by a one / two-child policy in a more passive way eg the government provides free healthcare, child benefit, free schooling etc for the first and second child and then subsequent children have to be fully paid for. In that way people can still have children, but would have to think before they expand their family beyond one or two.

That's the same in any 'third world' industry though, Ivy. In China at least there are women supervisors and bosses who are paid the same as men. When I worked in the DR I visited a canning factory where the women workers were only allowed one toilet break in a 12 hour day and it was the same for pregnant women. Some women couldn't help it and wet themselves which made them very distressed, but if they stopped work to go and clean up their wages were docked or they could be fired. If a woman gave birth she was only allowed to miss one shift of work or lose the job. Many slept in and around the factory as there was queue of unemployed people outside the factory gates and they were afraid that they would lose their jobs. That factory wasn't unusual either. It is unbelievable that these types of employment practices are allowed to go on in whichever country, although I'm sure ours in the West will soon follow suit given the political shift to the right.

[Crocus]

There are to many imbalances present I think. To many people in the first place, this causing governments not only to be prescriptive but also manipulative, if one takes China's policy into account. With this one-child policy they actually 'manipulate' people's lives, how they think, up to the point of having no regard to just abort a baby for being the wrong sex because it doesn't suit their personal life, way of thinking and probably for the economics of the country as well! It also seems to have 'instilled' the culture in women to 'disable' their girls, or hiding them away as I've read above.

[jazzactivist]

Yes, you're right, crocus, and it isn't just in over-populated countries either. It is easy to think that countries with high populations who are 'outed' for very divisive social engineering policies are the only ones with the problems, but similar policies are created in the so called advanced Western world too. We have a history of socially engineering poverty both in our own countries and in others, and it is always women and children who are at the sharp end of it. The most important thing to do is instead of wringing our hands and commenting on how terrible it is we need be speaking up and trying to change those policies. Nothing was ever change with silence.

[Crocus]

I agree with that Jazz, thing is, how do you change an inborn culture these people have about population and gender? They are so used to what's being done, what should be done, what are done for so many years and being a very dense populated country I think it will be like coughing against a tsunami or something. Perhaps the fact that in 8 years' time there may not be wives for 50 million Chinese men, hopefully may change their way of thinking. As I've said somewhere above, the one-child policy in an already over populated world is not a bad thing as such, it's actually the blase abortion of healthy innocent female babies which upsets me. x