Decades
after enacting a one-child policy China is set to relax current restrictions on
couples. The administration announced new reformations to the existing policy
that would enable parents who themselves come from only-child families to have
two children. In rural areas it is also permissible to have another child if
the first was a girl. These new policy changes are in part an effort to combat
China's grossly skewed gender ratio, where boys far outnumber girls. Human
rights groups are disappointed by the changes saying that they in fact don't go
far enough and instead would like to see the entire system abolished. Reports
of forced abortions and female infanticide have been a key argument against the
one-child policy, and analysts doubt that the reformations will greatly affect
these numbers or even drastically improve China's birth rate. Faced with an
aging population Chinese officials see the weakening of one-child legislation
as a stepping stone to addressing the issue of family planning and child
rearing. Many couples in the country only have one child due to the economic
burden. Chinese officials also announced plans to abolish their use of labor
camps. Started in the early 1950's by communist leader Mao the
"reeducation through labor" programs have been widely criticized by
the international community and human rights groups. The abolishment of these
camps is seen a positive foot forward for the growing nation as it begins to
have an ever more prominent position in the international community.
The
one-child policies of China were put into effect in an effort to curb their
rampantly out of control growth during the 80s. However, the policies worked
almost too well, with fertility rates dropping to below replacement rates.
China's population continues to grow, slowly, but is faced with an even newer
challenge: how to deal with their aging population. A latent manifestation of
such one-child policies has seen a drastic rise in abortions as females are
less valued culturally than men. When families can only have one child they
prefer to have a boy. A boy can offer them more income and can carry on the
family name. Boys are historically valued more in Chinese culture as the heads
of households and the family leaders. Infanticide and forced abortions have
been an issue with human rights groups for years and this relaxation of the
current policies seems to do little to address that.
The
abolishment of forced labor camps is a solid progressive move for China as it
continues to become a global player in the world. These labor camps were used
to "reeducate" political dissidents or those that opposed the current
power structure. However this "reeducation" amounted to little more
than torture through strict labor with little access to healthcare of adequate
food supplies. Unsanitary conditions and the demanding and fast paced work that
the prisoners were exposed to has led to several deaths with current statistics
still a mystery. These camps outraged the international community and were even
a hot button issue during the 2008 Beijing Olympics when it was discovered that
much of the Olympic facilities had in fact been constructed using forced labor
of political prisoners.
Aaron Fountain
11/15/2013
4:02 PM
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