China slammed by US State Department for policies that encourage trafficking in persons

-->

The US State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (or TIP Report) has downgraded China to a Tier 3 nation – a status it now shares with Iran, Sudan and North Korea.  Tier 3 nations may be subject to sanctions, if approved by the U.S. President.  A Chinese official responded with indignation, calling the downgrade an “arbitrary judgment.” Report by Women's Rights Without Frontiers

Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, stated, “The anger of the Chinese government against the TIP Report is misplaced.  They should channel their anger toward taking effective action against traffickers, rather than against the exposure to the world of their abysmal record on human trafficking.”

The TIP Report discusses how China’s One Child Policy, combined with son preference, has caused a gender imbalance that is driving human trafficking and sexual slavery, not only within China but from the surrounding countries as well.  The Report lists the many nations from which women and girls are trafficked into China:  “Women and children from neighboring Asian countries, including Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore, Mongolia, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), as well as from Russia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas, are reportedly trafficked to China for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor.”

The TIP Report found that, despite the prevalence of human trafficking and sexual slavery, the Chinese government’s efforts at prevention falls below minimum standards.  In fact, the Report found that many state-run institutions were complicit in the trafficking:  “ . . . The Chinese government did not demonstrate significant efforts to comprehensively prohibit and punish all forms of trafficking and to prosecute traffickers. The government continued to perpetuate human trafficking in at least 320 state-run institutions, while helping victims of human trafficking in only seven.”

The TIP Report further criticized the Chinese government for failing to “address the effects its birth limitation policy had in creating a gender imbalance and fueling trafficking, particularly through bride trafficking and forced marriage.”

 Women’s Rights Without Frontiers commends the decision by the State Department to drop China from a Tier 2 to a Tier 3 nation.  We particularly affirm the connection the TIP report draws between the One Child Policy and human trafficking. The sex-selective abortion of baby girls in China – exacerbated by the coercive low birth limit under the One Child Policy -- has created a dangerous gender imbalance in which there are an estimated 37 million more men than women living in China today.  

The TIP report mentions the forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees as economic migrants.  Such forcible repatriation contravenes international refugee law.  Moreover, young women and girls who are refugees or who are trafficked from North Korea into China may face the death penalty upon their forcible repatriation.  These young North Korean sex slaves in China are among the most desperate people on earth.  They can be beaten and raped with impunity.  If they somehow manage to escape and report this abuse to Chinese authorities, instead of receiving help, they can be repatriated to North Korea, where they may be executed.

Littlejohn continued, “WRWF urges the Obama administration to apply appropriate sanctions against China, consistent with those allowed in the TIP Report.”

Rescue of Chinese baby flushed down toilet

A shocking consequence of the Chinese one child policy came into public view yesterday when a video showing an abandoned baby went viral. The baby who was rescued last weekend from a sewage pipe is being nursed back to health in a local hospital. Meanwhile, the baby’s mother has been found and has reportedly been reunited with the infant

Firefighters in an eastern Chinese province rescued the newborn infant from the sewage pipe after neighbors reported hearing crying. Officials in China’s Zhejiang Province rescued the infant on Saturday afternoon.

PS It has subsequently been reported that the presence of the baby in the pipe was accidental

China: Woman’s Death by Hanging at Family Planning Office – Suicide or Something Else?

Reggie Littlejohn of Women’s Rights without Frontiers reports  on yet another atrocity which took place in relation to China’s one child policy, this time in BEIZHANGLOU VILLAGE, TAIKANG COUNTY, HENAN PROVINCE.

Earlier this month, it was reported widely in Chinese media sources that Yang Yuzhi hung herself in the local Family Planning Office.  Forcibly sterilized twice, she had for years suffered chronic pain from these traumatic procedures.  Her medication drained the family finances, so she regularly petitioned the Family Planning Office for compensation, to no avail.

On March 13, according to her family, Yang was emotionally stable.  There was nothing unusual, no reason to believe that she was at risk of suicide.  On this day, she went as usual to press her petition at the Family Planning Office.  Her family had no idea that she would never return.

Late that day, the Family Planning Commission told Yang’s family that she had committed suicide, and that they “found her body hanging at the top of the stairs.”  She also appears to have been severely beaten.  Her dead body was covered with bruises, and her neck was nearly severed by the wire rope from which she was hanging. Read the full story here:

The explanation given by the Family Planning Office raises more questions than it answers. What was Yang doing at the top of the stairs in the Family Planning Office, for an extended period of time, by herself?  Was she free to wander unsupervised around the Family Planning Office, with enough time to find a wire rope, attach it securely to the ceiling or another fixture, create a noose and hang herself – all this in a state of weakness and pain caused by the beatings?  Why did no one discover that Yang was in the process of hanging herself at the top of the stairs (not in a hidden closet) and stop her?

These unanswered questions raise the issue:  Was this truly a suicide?  Or did the Family Planning Officials torture Yang, then hang her to make it look like a suicide?  Women’s Rights Without Frontiers demands an investigation.

This would not be the first time the Chinese Communist Party has been suspected of attempting to cover up a murder as “suicide.”  In July 2012, well-known Tiananmen Square activist Li Wangyang was found dead, hanging in a hospital room.  His friends called official claims that he had committed suicide “insulting” and “ridiculous,” according to a CNN report.  Like Yang, Li was in “good spirits” the day he was found dead.

Moreover, while the world rightly stares in horror at late-term forced abortion, the death of Yang Yuzhi demonstrates the urgency of stopping forced sterilization as well.  Lost in the headlines about the Chinese Communist Party’s recent admission that they have performed 336 million abortions under the One Child Policy is the fact that they also admitted to performing 196 million sterilizations.  These sterilizations too often leave women butchered and maimed.

Forced sterilizations are routine.  In April 2010, the Population and Family Planning Bureau detained 1,300 people in a campaign to sterilize more than 9,500 people, mostly women, in the Puning City, Guangdong Province.  Those who resisted were detained, along with other family members, such as elderly grandparents.

Yang’s death also emphasizes the absence of the rule of law in China.  She died while petitioning for justice.  Family Planning Officials commonly regard themselves as being above the law.  Rarely are they held to account for the many injustices they commit.

The death of Yang Yuzhi, if truly a suicide, also draws the connection between coercive family planning and the fact that China has the highest female suicide rate in the world. It has been reported that 500 women a day end their lives in China.

Stop Forced Abortion- China's one child policy

I recently met Reggie Littlejohn at a meeting in Washington DC and am a great admirer of the work she carries out on behalf of Chinese women in highlighting the one child policy. 

Reggie is President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, a non-partisan, international coalition to oppose forced abortion and human trafficking in China.  She is also an internationally acclaimed expert on China’s One Child Policy.  She has twice delivered an address at European Parliament in Brussels concerning the One-Child Policy.  Her first Address was included as a chapter in the book, “Human Rights in China After the Olympic Games,” (Human Rights Without Frontiers, 2009), now available on Amazon.com.  In addition, she has briefed the White House and testified twice before Congress. Reggie also testified at the European, British and Irish Parliaments.

This video speaks for itself 

"Batman" star Christian Bale refused access to blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng

Christian Newswire  report that "Batman" star Christian Bale traveled nine hours from Beijing to visit blind forced abortion opponent Chen Guangcheng. Bale said, "What I really wanted to do was shake the man's hand and say 'thank you,' and tell him what an inspiration he is." 

 see VIDEO on LifeSite News

Bale never got the chance. He was roughed up and forced away from Chen's village, according to a CNN report

Bale was in Beijing, China for the premier of "The Flowers of War," a drama about the 1937 Rape of Nanjing. About his attempt to visit Chen, Bale stated, "I'm not brave doing this . . . This was just a situation -- I can't look the other way." 

According to Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women's Rights Without Frontiers, "Christian Bale is right that the true heroes are the Chinese citizens who have been beaten and detained trying to visit Chen, and yet Bale is a hero as well. He is starring in the most expensive film ever made in China, which China hopes will win an Academy Award. Nevertheless, he has the courage to stand against official injustice and has greatly raised the visibility of Chen's case." 

Littlejohn contrasted Bale's actions with those of Relativity Media. "Christian Bale has used his star power to shine a light on the unjust treatment of Chen Guangcheng. In contrast, Relativity Media filmed '21 and Over' in Linyi, where Chen is languishing under house arrest. They did nothing to help Chen. I hope that moviegoers will demonstrate their concern for Chen Guangcheng at the box office by boycotting '21 and Over.'" 


Chen Guangcheng alive

I have blogged before about the brave opponent of China's one child policy Chen Guangcheng and also previously
Christian Newswire reports that a reliable source inside China told Women's Rights Without Frontiers that forced abortion opponent Chen Guangcheng is alive. An unconfirmed report went out in early October that Chen had died under house arrest.

According to this source, who requested anonymity, "Now his mother is allowed to go outside to buy food although escorted by three guards, and his health also is getting better."

The source attributed the improved treatment of Chen to the fact that "Chen's situation was exposed and got huge public attention." One campaign that brought considerable visibility to Chen's plight was the flow of concerned citizens attempting to visit him for his fortieth birthday on November 12. Many of these citizens were beaten and detained.

In addition, the "Chen Sunglasses Freedom" campaigns inside and outside of China have raised the visibility of his case. These campaigns post photos of people wearing sunglasses in support of Chen. The source stated, "I think it's great. I think it's very helpful for people all over the world to show they care about Chen through the Sunglasses campaigns. I think it's very important to show support inside and outside the country – we can work together." These campaigns, spearheaded by Women's Rights Without Frontiers and Dark Glasses Portrait, can be found on this link

Chinese treatment of blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng

I have blogged (most recently on 10 February 2011) about the blind Chinese lawyer, Chen Guangcheng and his treatment on the part of the Chinese authorities.  

Pro-life blogs.com now report that Chen and his wife are being transferred to a small prison ‘built specifically for them’.   The building ‘basically amounts to a jail’ so that the authorities can ‘keep tighter controls on them.’ 

The couple’s young son is living with relatives, and they are also being separated from their little five-year-old daughter. 

The report states that: ‘Chen was arrested in 2006 for exposing evidence that 130,000 forced abortions and involuntary sterilizations were performed on women in Linyi County, Shandong Province, in a single year.  Time Magazine named him one of “2006’s Top 100 People Who Shape Our World”.  Chen spent four years in prison.  Since his release, he continues under house arrest.  He and his wife have been beaten repeatedly and denied medical treatment.’

Why do we not hear more about this latest unjust treatment of this protector of unborn children and their mothers, in the world’s media?

"Illegal Children" Abducted by Chinese Authorities and Trafficked Abroad

The Population Research Institute (PRI) reports that so called "illegal children" in China are being abducted by Chinese authorities and trafficked abroad. see full PRI report

According to a report in the Caixin Century magazine, population control officials in the Chinese province of Hunan seized at least 16 babies born in violation of the one-child policy, sent them to state-run orphanages, and then sold them abroad for adoption.

In the words of Steven W. Mosher, China expert and president of the Population Research Institute,

“if this is true (which we at PRI believe it to be based on our own research in China), then this act represents a serious human rights violation and a clear instance of human trafficking.”

“Before 1997, they usually punished us by tearing down our houses for breaching the one-child policy, but after 2000 they began to confiscate our children,” the magazine quoted villager Yuan Chaoren as saying.

The children, reportedly from Longhui county near the city of Shaoyang, were abducted by local authorities who accused their parents of breaching the one-child policy or illegally adopting children. Then, according to Caixin Century, the local family planning office sent them to local orphanages, which listed them as being available for adoption. The report added that the office could get 1,000 renminbi or more for each child. The orphanages in turn receive $3,000 to $5,000 for each child adopted overseas, money that is paid by the adoptive parents. The magazine reported that at least one migrant worker said she had found her daughter had been adopted abroad and was now living in the United States.

According to Steven Mosher, this report is heartbreaking, but not surprising.

"This report," says Mosher, “is corroborated by research that PRI conducted on the ground in China back in 2009. In Lipu county, located in northern Guangxi province, we were told by a village official that ’at the present time, if you don't pay the fine, they come and abduct the baby you just gave birth to and give it to someone else.’ It is also worth noting that these two reports come from the same general area of China and occurred in neighboring provinces."

“Of course,” Mosher continues,

“local officials deny any involvement in child trafficking. But it is well known that the so-called ‘job responsibility system’ requires them to rigorously enforce the one-child policy, and that their success (or failure) in this area will determine future promotions (or demotions). Abducting and selling an ‘illegal’ baby or child would not only enable an official to eliminate a potential black mark on his record, it would allow him to make a profit at the same time.

“In this way,” Mosher concludes, “the one-child policy, through its system of perverse and inhumane rewards and punishment, encourages officials to violate the fundamental right of parents to decide for themselves the number and spacing of their children.”

China's One Child Policy-the worst gender crime in the world today

President Hu Jintao of China was warmly welcomed by President Barack Obama during an official visit to the U.S. and honored with a rare State Dinner while his visit presented an opportunity to expose the horrific human rights violations taking place in China today.

New Speaker of the House Republican John Boehner pressed Hu on forced abortion during a congressional leadership meeting stating: "When it comes to guaranteeing the freedom and dignity of all her citizens, including and especially the unborn, Chinese leaders have a responsibility to do better, and the United States has a responsibility to hold them to account."

PNCI, the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues report that U.S. Representatives Chris Smith and Frank Wolf hosted a press conference with prominent Chinese human rights activists who spoke for the millions imprisoned, tortured and killed by the repressive Chinese regime and gave testimony against China's population control policy. According to Smith, "The Chinese government's one-child-per-couple policy, with its attendant horrors of forced abortion campaigns and rampant sex-selective abortion, is, in scope and seriousness, the worst human rights abuse - the worst gender crime - in the world today."

The Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, presented President Hu with a list of concerns about human rights violations in China during the meeting in the US Capitol. Hu responsed on only one issue--forced abortion. According to Ros-Lehtinen "Out of all of the issues I raised, the only one which received a response from Mr. Hu was my statement urging the end of China's forced abortion policy.  I was astonished when he insisted that such a policy does not exist."

Hu's denial of the practice of coerced abortion in enforcing the one child policy casts serious doubt on his credibility as global media coverage voiced the concerns of Chinese human rights advocates who exposed the brutality of China's population policy.

Reggie Littlejohn of Women’s Rights without Frontiers condemned the violence of coerced abortion in China and former Tiananmen Square student leader Chai Ling made an impassioned plea for the end of the daily 35,000 coerced and forced abortions in China. Ling, founder of All Girls Allowed was hopeful that more Americans would voice their opposition to the abuse inflicted on women in China and to the killing of baby girls through sex selective abortion and infanticide. 

Ling told the meeting 

"As we gather here in Washington, over 35,000 forced and coerced abortions are taking place today in China; every 2.5 second a precious baby's life is taken; among every six baby girls, one will never be born simply because she is a girl; 500 women will commit suicide, at five times the world average rate; 3000 baby girls are abandoned on street corners; and more than 200 children and women are trafficked into slavery […]

"Yesterday we celebrated Dr. King's birthday. His passionate dream led to a generation and a world that restores life, value and dignity to all races.  Today, we too have a dream! We dream a dream that will restore life, value and dignity to all children, all gender, in China and around the world.

"We dream a dream that tomorrow China's Forced One Child Policy will become history; we dream a dream that children will grow up with brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts; we dream a dream that all tears will be wiped from the faces of parents whose children were taken; we dream a dream that all young men will have brides and taste the sweetness of being newly wed; we dream a dream that all mothers will mourn no more because they are with children; we dream a dream that the oppressed will find freedom and the exiled will return home; we dream a dream that justice will roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

We dream a dream that God would bless his promised land of China and the world: that there will be no more death, no more mourning; no more crying; no more pain, for the old order of things has passed away. We know these dreams will come true because God's words are trustworthy and true (Revelation 21:4-5).

Ted Turner on climate change and China's one child policy

Mr. Ted Turner, ‘media mogul’, and long-time advocate of population control, has said that the ‘environmental stress’ on the planet Earth requires ‘radical solutions’. Such solutions, he says, would include that countries should follow China’s one-child policies in order to reduce global population over time.   He has also suggested that ‘fertility rights could be sold so that poor people could profit from their decision not to reproduce.’   

But former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson (she who decided to cut short her position as president in order to take up a more ‘important’ role at the United Nations, and who has now once again returned to Ireland with a new personal venture for which she may be receiving a handsome grant from the Irish government), considers that radical solutions for population control, such as that suggested by Ted Turner, might backfire.  She clearly agrees with the goal however it is simply the methodology she considers to be too radical, ‘If we do it the wrong way’, Mary Robinson is quoted as saying, ‘we can divide the world.  A lot of people in the climate world could communicate this very badly.’   Indeed.  We know where Mary Robinson’s concerns lie.

Just a comment – funny how the phrase ‘global warming’ has gone out of fashion and is hardly used at all nowadays, certainly not after the snow, ice, and freezing temperatures of recent weeks.  No, it’s now called ‘climate change’ – so that any weather conditions can be used to justify the ‘over-population’ myth.

China’s Silent Holocaust to continue

China’s disastrous one child policy, now thirty years old has wreaked havoc and destruction on the Chinese people. This policy is responsible for the termination of an estimated 400 million babies lives, it has destroyed the lives of millions of women, skewed the countries sex ratio creating huge population imbalances that will make it impossible for many Chinese men to find wives and has also resulted in a rapidly ageing population.

Despite all of this however it is reported that the policy is set to continue according to many reports; see Irish Independent report as follows

China will continue to limit most families to just one child in the coming decades, state media said yesterday, despite concerns about the policy's problematic side effects, such as too few girls and a rapidly ageing population.
China has the world's largest population and credits its 30-year-old family planning limits with preventing 400 million additional births and helping to break a traditional preference for large families that had left many trapped in poverty.
There had been growing speculation about whether the government would relax the policy, allowing more people to have two children. A family planning official in the southern province of Guangdong had predicted his province would loosen the restrictions by 2015.
But the 'China Daily' newspaper yesterday quoted Li Bin, head of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, as saying there were no changes planned.

Rules
The family planning rules, which limit urban couples to one child and rural couples to two, have curbed China's population growth but brought new problems, such as an expanding elderly population that demographers say will be increasingly hard to support.
The policy is also blamed for the country's skewed sex ratio. Chinese families with a strong preference for boys sometimes resort to aborting their baby girls. Demographers worry the imbalance will make it hard for men to find wives.
The male-female ratio at birth in China is about 119 males to 100 females, with the gap as high as 130 males for every 100 females in some provinces. In industrialised countries, the ratio is 107 to 100.

Demographic Bomb

One of the ways currently being proposed of reducing global warming and its effects is todecrease human activity and the proposal suggests that the best way to do so is to decrease population. This was seriously proposed by the Chinese government last week during the summit currently taking place in Copenhagen .

The coercive and draconian population control methods of the Chinese are well known and rejected by all right thinking people and yet they are now being proposed as the solution. Sadly we have heard of solutions like this before and even a so called "final solution". World governments must not go down this pathway.

The following trailer for the Demographic Bomb gives another side to the story

Shocking new statistics: 13 million abortions annually in China

I have blogged previously on China’s one child policy and the problems arising from that draconian legislation, however I was astounded by statistics released on Thursday by Chinese health officials who say that more than 13 million babies are now aborted annually in China. Clearly however even this is far from being the total annual loss of life due to the one child policy, Chinese officials have admitted that this accounts only for surgical abortions carried out in hospitals, not those in unregistered rural abortion facilities. In addition, 10 million abortifacients are sold every year in China which became the first country in the world to approve the deadly RU 486 abortion pill in 1988 to assist with its One Child "family planning" programs. These figures show a marked increase from the last available statistics in 2003. ((New York Times article)

Despite the government's ongoing coercive one child policy, which continues to employ fines, heavy pressure and intimidation to convince people to abort, local experts have blamed lack of knowledge among young people of sex and contraceptives for the figures. Li Ying, a professor at Peking University cited a survey that showed fewer than 30 percent of young people who called a hospital hotline knew "how to avoid" pregnancy. "Sex education needs to be strengthened, with universities and our society giving more guidance," she said. (LifeSiteNews.Com)

The Chinese cultural preference for sons, combined with the state’s longstanding one-child policy, has resulted in the wide usage of sex selective abortions, the end result of which is that there are now 32 million more Chinese boys than girls under 20 and this imbalance that is expected to widen over the next 20 years.

Recently, the financial centre of Shanghai, the country's largest city with a population of just under 19 million, is reportedly independently relaxing the one child rule. Officials announced last week that couples should consider having a second child to offset the aging of the overall population.
"We advocate eligible couples to have two kids, because it can help to reduce the proportion of the aging people and alleviate a workforce shortage in the future," according to Xie Linli, director of the Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission.

Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute and a renowned China expert, says that Shanghai's purported “relaxation” of the one-child policy is hardly that, and represents little for most of the citizens of China.

“Shanghai has long had very low birthrates,” says Mosher, who goes on to explain that 15 years ago, the head of Shanghai's one-child policy was actually having trouble getting people under her jurisdiction to accept a quota for one child, much less for two. “This official couldn't fill her quotas for births," he says. “People didn't want more than one child. Some of the time, they didn't even want one.”

“This explains Shanghai's recent move to a `two-child policy',” says Mosher. “By letting the minority who still want two children to act on their preferences, this will help offset the birth dearth caused by the majority who want only one—or none. The result will still be a de facto one-child policy.” As for the rest of the country of China, Mosher says, “our investigations show that the one-child policy is still being pursued with a vengeance, a vengeance that includes forced abortions.”