159
THE LOST GIRLS: HUMAN TRAFFICKING AS A CONSEQUENCE OF THE ONE-CHILD POLICY
ANNABELL MONTE
MARY BALDWIN COLLEGE
Since around 1200 CE, China has held the distinct privilege of holding the title of the most populous country in the world. [1]Throughout history, China’s population tended to serve as a reflection of each Dynasty’s success, fluctuating during periods of prosperity and falling during times of poverty. This trend can still be seen in China today, where the country’s present state of economic success has set the ideal backdrop for the country’s population to swell into the billions if left unregulated.
Anticipating that China would one day face serious economic, environmental and social problems because of the country’s surging population, Deng Xiaoping in 1979 established the one-child policy[2]. Created in the hopes of slowing down China’s booming population, which at the time was quickly approaching one billion, the one-child policy limited families to having one child. While the policy has been greeted with approval by many Chinese, with an approval rating of over 76% in 2008[3], the policy has also been severely criticized by some sources both inside and outside of China as a violation of human rights, particularly in regard to women! Although initially pushed as the policy from which many women could benefit, the one-child policy has ultimately failed to fix the root of the problem of women’s inequality, specifically the belief that men hold more value over women. Due to the traditional preference of sons in China, it has also led to a severe disproportion between men and women. By 2005, there was a ratio of 118 boys born to every 100 girls and as high as 130 boys to every 100 girls in some rural provinces of China. It is estimated that by the year 2020, 30-35 million Chinese men of marriageable age will have trouble finding women to marry[4].
It is because of the growing imbalance between men and women, exasperated by the one-child policy, that a market of trafficking and selling women from neighboring countries and even from within different parts of China has opened up. Specifically geared towards men of marriageable age, the practice of “bride buying” has slowly become a viable way for men from villages with few women to find wives.
What is the One-child Policy? The history and reasoning behind this extreme law
Today China is a rising super power. With its vast population and rapid economic growth, China will one day replace Japan as Asia’s economic leader. Despite China’s continuous growth, the people still live under the thumb of a totalitarian government where they frequently suffer various human rights violations. Protesting against the government, practicing religion freely, moving at one’s will, and speaking freely are among the many things that are strictly prohibited by the government.[5] The one-child policy is also one of the many extreme examples that demonstrate how, although China may be economically free, they have yet to experience true individual freedoms.[6]
Enacted in 1979, China’s one-child policy was implemented in order to slow the country’s surging population. Historically an agricultural nation, Chinese families traditionally consisted of numerous children in order to lessen the work load on the farm, increase productivity, and to ensure that parents would have someone, typically a son, to care for them in old age. However, by the 1970’s, the age old tradition of having big extended families had caused China’s population to reach well over 900 million[7], which began to put a strain on the country’s already limited resources.[8] By then, the communist party had already made continuous attempts to implement family planning and birth control, only to be denied time after time by Mao Zedong. However, when Deng Xiaoping finally came into power in 1978, he was determined to run the country differently than his predecessor had. Reversing Mao’s attempts of closing China off from the rest of the world, Deng Xiaoping opened China’s doors in an attempt to modernize and bring the country into the 20th century. By this time, China’s population was quickly approaching one billion.[9] Afraid that this rapid population growth would ruin China’s attempts to modernize, Deng Xiaoping created the one-child policy, otherwise known as the “Population and Family Planning Law,” which only permitted families to have one child.[10]
Presented by the government as a way of protecting the welfare of the state and promoting the “legitimate rights and happiness of its citizens,”[11] the one-child policy restricted urban families to one child per family and only allowed exemptions to both rural and minority communities. Typically in rural areas, where more than half of China’s population still resides (57.7%), couples are allowed up to two children without having to request special permission from the government.[12] The same also holds true for the 8% of the Chinese population that is made up of ethnic and minority peoples. To keep these small communities from dying out, the government also allows exemptions for these communities and allows them to bear up to two children.[13]
To encourage Chinese families to uphold this law, sanctions and fees were put into place to ensure citizens wouldn’t be tempted to break the rules. These fees ranged from having to pay fines annually, to the more severe consequence of making families pay for all of their children’s medical expenses and schooling.[14] On the other hand, to reward families who had upheld this policy, the Chinese government offered many special incentives. These rewards included, but were not limited to, offering retirement or “old-age insurance,” medical insurance for the whole family and childbearing insurance. Furthermore, couples who waited longer to marry and bear a child, were given extra incentives at work, such as long vacations.[15]
Initially the one-child policy was praised by many countries. It seemed like a simple and humane way of alleviating the population and was seen as a good way of preventing future problems such as environmental impacts, scarcity in food, natural resources and even jobs. Today the one-child policy is still seen as big success. Since its implementation in 1979, the Chinese government claims that it has prevented more than 250 to 300 million births and they estimate that they have 300 to 400 million people less because of it[16].
When the one-child policy was initially implemented by China’s government, it was not only advertised as a way of reducing the population, it was seen as a way of modernizing traditional Chinese ideals about marriage, family and women. China is one of the world’s oldest civilizations whose traditions and cultures date back six thousand years[17]. It is not uncommon to see many of those thousand year old traditions and ideas still alive and prevalent in China today. Traditions like arranged marriages, son preference, patrilocal exogamy, and having big families are all still practiced in China. Therefore, when Deng Xiaoping came into power and began the process of modernizing the country, it was no surprise that he also attempted to change many of China’s traditional mindsets as well. The one-child policy was the perfect tool to accomplish this because it moved China away from the ancient practice of having extended families, and attempted to promote women’s status in society. However, breaking old habits is never an easy feat, so to soften the transition away from old habits to new ones, the one-child policy was promoted as a way of bringing happiness to marriages and families. The idea was that, if there were fewer children to take care of, families could enjoy a better quality of life in which parents could invest more time and money into the one child. The real hook, however, was the insinuation that by giving more to the child, this would inevitably produce a happy and grateful child, who would later come back to take care of his or her parents in old age.[18]
The one-child policy was also, ironically enough, seen as the vehicle for improving women’s status in Chinese society. By raising women’s education level and attempting to change the traditional ideas about women, who were usually considered lower class citizens, the Chinese government cleverly created a safety net to ensure that women would bear fewer children.[19] If women were better educated and focused more on their studies, they would as a consequence, have fewer children. By limiting families to one child, women were no longer confined to their traditional role of taking care of the house and children; women were now free to further their education and work outside the home.[20]
An important aspect of the government’s attempt to improve women’s status was trying to distance Chinese society from the traditional idea of son preference, specifically the idea that sons were better than daughters, by limiting the practice of “patrilocal exogamy.” Patrilocal exogamy is the marriage custom in which the bride is given away to the groom and forced to live at her in-law’s house. Separated from her family, the new wife will spend her life not only looking after her own children and husband, but forced to act as a servant to her husband’s family. [21]Therefore, not only are brides forced to serve as a live-in maids, women in this situation are also rendered completely dependent on their husbands and have little choice regarding how many children they have, her ultimate goal being to bear a son. With little hope for the future, women in this situation usually bear more children. They unfortunately also become a liability for their parents, who are not only forced to give away their daughters once they marry, but are also expected to provide the groom’s family with a dowry.[22]
The custom of patrilocal exogamy is the perfect example of a traditional Chinese custom that perpetuates the myth that women are inferior to men, and contributes to China’s high population. In the case of the Chinese, this custom severely undermines women by forcing them to act as servants to their husband’s family where they have little control over their lives, and inadvertently cause their parents to view them as a lost cause. Therefore, it is no surprise that Chinese parents refuse to invest in any form of education on their daughters because in the future she would be given away to another family. A son, on the other hand, would never leave the family and would always come back to take care of his parents. Traditional Chinese customs like this have created an environment in which women hold little value and where families will go to great lengths to ensure that they have a son.[23]
Fortunately, by using the one-child policy, the Chinese government was successful in raising the percentage of women who are educated and who worked outside the home. However, the government’s attempt to raise women’s status in Chinese society was not as successful because they were never able to eradicate the notion that sons carried more value over daughters. Instead of forcing the Chinese to abandon this mindset and to accept their daughters, the one-child policy fostered an environment in which parents were forced to choose between the law and their traditions; and in the end tradition won. This policy has left parents in a situation in which many will go to extreme measures to ensure that they have a son to carry on their family name.
Backlash: The consequences of the one-child policy.
Since its enactment, the one-child policy has commonly been cited as a violation of human rights. Although China, because of its traditional preference for sons, has had a gap between the sexes since the 1930’s, the one-child policy has become a major contributing factor in widening the ratio between men and women.[24] Forced abortions, infanticide, feticide, the act of aborting female fetuses, neglect and abandonment of girls, have all become common practices in China for some parents who are intent on having a son.[25]
When the one-child policy was first established in 1979, the government was initially ill prepared for the sudden influx of illegal practices that arose to help needy Chinese couples who desperately yearned for sons.[26] Due to the severe lack of governmental foresight, practices such as abortions and infanticide quickly became easy ways for Chinese parents to rid themselves of their daughters. Prenatal screening for feticide, for example, has become a thriving business in China. Even though the practice of screening a fetus for this purpose is illegal today, thousands of fetuses have been aborted because of this medical practice. [27] Due to China’s high population and lack of governmental vigilance, feticide has replaced infanticide, as a quick and easy way for Chinese couples to rid themselves of unwanted female fetuses. With today’s technology, any couple can easily go to the doctors for an ultrasound, determine the fetus’ gender with a high degree of efficiency, and abort the child if they are unhappy with the results. Thus, not only is the couple able to rid themselves of the child easily with little emotional attachments, the couple also runs little risk of being apprehended by the police for aborting their child. [28] It is estimated that up to 70 percent of all abortions in China, are unwanted female fetuses. [29]
Infanticide, the act of killing a child, has also unfortunately become a common side effect of the one-child policy. Though some Chinese parents chose to rid their child quickly through prenatal screening, others wait until the child is born and simply let the child die through neglect. Abandonment of baby girls at city gates, police stations and orphanages has become arguably one of the more humane ways in which parents give up their child to try for a son. However, inhuman ways that some Chinese parents have resorted to include, suffocation, drowning, starvation, crushing the child’s skull right after birth, or injecting the baby’s head with formaldehyde. [30]