APPENDIX 4
Supplementary memorandum from The Society
for the Protection of Unborn Children
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
AND HUMAN
RIGHTS WATCH
CONCERNS ABOUT
ONE-CHILD
POLICY
Part of the uncorrected transcript of the Committee's
evidence session on 7 January 2003 reports the following exchange
between the Chairman and Mr. Tim Hancock, Parliamentary Officer,
Amnesty International UK:
Chairman: There were two other memoranda, one
from the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child concerned
about the one-child policy in China and alleging that the work
of the UN Population Fund in some regions has given the policy
a legitimacy. Do you share those concerns about the one-child
policy in China as enunciated by SPUC?
Mr Hancock: Can we get back to you on that one
please. It is not something that is we are familiar with.
In the light of Mr. Hancock's reply and assuming
that the Committee has not been informed of Amnesty's concerns
about the one-child policy, we submit the following quotations
on the one-child policy from Amnesty International and Human Rights
Watch documents:
1. Amnesty International Annual Report 2002
China section:
"The perpetrators [of torture and ill-treatment]
included. . .birth control officials. ."
2. "China: Extensive use of torture—from
police to tax collectors to birth control officials", Amnesty
International Index ASA 17/003/2001, 12 February 2001:
"[Zhou Jiangxiong, a] 30-year-old farmer
from Hunan province was tortured to death [by officials from a
township birth control office in May 1998] because the officials
were trying to make him reveal the whereabouts of his wife, suspected
of being pregnant without permission."
3. Lord Elton, House of Lords Hansard, 25
October 2001;
[column 1122]
"Let us look at a report about one child:
"Public outrage and reports to local newspapers
disclosed the brutal battering and killing of a new born `out
of plan' baby by birth control officials in Caidian village, Hubei
Province on 15 August 2000."
That is not fantasy; it is the Amnesty International
report of March this year."
[column 1107]
"Amnesty International reported as recently
as 1999 that,
"women must sign personal birth limitation
contracts.. .The contracts indicate that contraception is compulsory
and that abortion is the only remedy in the case of unauthorised
pregnancies".
4. Isabel Kelly, Amnesty International,
quoted by CNS.com, 15 February 2001:
"We believe the Chinese government should
take action to ensure that its family planning officials do not
commit human rights violations by making women have abortions,
even physically detaining them to have abortions."
5. Catherine Baber, Amnesty International's
China researcher, quoted by the Daily Mail, 2 September
2000:
"We are especially worried about people
being put in detention to put pressure on pregnant relatives to
undergo forced abortion. As far as we are concerned, that amounts
to torture."
6. "People's Republic of China: Gross
Violations of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region",
Amnesty International report, ASA 17/18/99, April 1999:
"There is evidence from many sources that
implementation of the birth control policy has caused a great
deal of discontent among the local population, leading in some
areas to incidents of violence.. . .Reports of violence against
women in the context of implementation of the birth control policy
in the XUAR refer not only to forced abortions and sterilizations,
but also to cases where women have suffered permanent health damage
or even died as a result of careless surgery during such operations".
7. "Human rights in China: the attacks
on fundamental rights continue", T. Kumar, Advocacy Director
for Asia & Pacific, Amnesty International USA, February 11,
1999:
"Birth control has been compulsory in China
since 1979 and the official line that `coercion' is not permitted
is flatly contradicted by the facts."
8. Amnesty International testimony "US—China
relations and human rights: Is constructive engagement working?"
before the US House of Representatives International Relations
Committee, International Operations and Human Rights, presented
by T. Kumar, Advocacy Director for Asia & Pacific, Amnesty
International USA, October 28, 1997:
"Amnesty International remains concerned
that there is no evidence that the authorities have yet set in
place effective measures to ensure that such coercion is not only
forbidden on paper, but persecuted, punished and prevented in
practice."
9. "Women in China: detained, victimized
but mobilized", Amnesty International Index: ASA 17/80/96,
chapter 5, "Update on the enforced birth control policy":
"The assertion that the policy is based
on voluntary participation and is moving away from administrative
means is not supported by recent insights into application of
the policy."
10. "China—no one is safe: Political
repression and abuse of power in the 1990s—Human rights
violations resulting from the birth control policy":
"Many people, especially women, have suffered
violations of their most fundamental rights as a result of China's
birth control policy."
11. "People's Republic of China—Six
years after Tiananmen: Increased political repression and human
rights violations", Amnesty International Index: ASA 17/28/95:
"Human rights violations perpetrated against
Catholics in the course of enforcement of the birth control policy
were also reported."
12. "People's Republic of China: Gross
human rights violations continue", Amnesty International
Index: ASA 17/17/96:
"Yu Jian'an, the vice-president of a hospital
in Henan province, was executed for reportedly taking bribes in
exchange for issuing false sterilization certificates to women
who were seeking to avoid sterilization."
13. "China: The imprisonment and harassment
of Jesus Family members in Shandong province", Amnesty International
index: ASA 17/31/94:
"On 18 July 1992 . . . eighteen female members
of the Jesus Family were detained by the police . . . each woman
was forced to have a general physical examination and to have
her genitals X-rayed. . . . One of the women reported ".
. . . the head of the County Public Security Bureau humiliated
us further by saying that if any of us were found pregnant, we
would be sent to the hospital and forced to have an abortion.""
14. "Reproduction, sexuality and human
rights violations", Human Rights Watch:
"Numerous sources have also reported that
local Chinese officials have frequently used or condoned physical,
psychological and economic coercion to enforce China's official
one-child policy. In 1994 China further adopted the Law of the
People's Republic of China on Maternal and Infant Health Care,
essentially a eugenics law, that threatens to undermine the right
of couples with a `serious hereditary disease' to found a family".
15. "Chinese orphanages: a follow-up",
Human Rights Watch, March 1996, Vol. 8, No. 1 (C):
"Despite the acknowledged epidemic of child
(usually infant girl) abandonment that has taken place over the
past decade and more in China, largely as a result of the government's
one-child policy, the overall institutional capacity of the national
orphanage system has remained virtually static."
The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children
(SPUC)
29 January 2003
|
