The world’s estimated population is 7.125 billion and is expected to grow by at least 1.2% annually. Only 50 years ago there were 2.53 billion people worldwide, in the space of just 50 years the population has grown by a staggering 4.95 billion people. However, the question that I ask now is can and should we as human beings be able to control how many children a family is allowed? In this case the discussion is China. The one child policy was introduced by the Chinese government in 1979 to supposedly ‘alleviate social, economic and environmental problems.’
The government deemed this a necessary policy as in the 1950s the rate of population growth in China was 1.9% each year. Previous Chinese governments had encouraged people to have a lot of children to increase the country’s workforce, however the government soon realised that the population would soon be out of control and unsustainable. Of course there are many problems with enforcing the policy; those who already had more than one child didn’t receive benefits and were fined, however counteracting the thousands of pounds the government spent enforcing the law, daily inspections from the police to every house in the country was a huge strain on resources. It was almost impossible to enforce in the large rural areas of the country where it was traditional to have large families to work the farms, run the family business etc. The most troubling issue as a result of the one child policy is the claim that many women who became pregnant after their first child were forced to have an abortion and were forcibly sterilised. Surely, if this is a true fact, this is morally wrong and shows a corrupt government?
In 2007, it is believed that 17,000 women were subjected to strelisations, abortions and fines for illegal births. There are even more consequences of the one child policy, these women are taken from their homes and forced to have an abortion that they do not want, an infringement on their basic human rights. China has the highest rate for women’s suicide, could this be the cause? In February 2013, only last year, Feng Jianmei, a chinese woman has spoken out about her ordeal. Last June she was beaten by birth control officials in the shaanxi province and was forced to abort her seven-month old baby girl. A year on she still deals with persistent medical issues and feels she and her husband suffered the greatest loss of all: the loss of an innocent child. Photos were released of Feng by her sister showing that she was forcibly injected with chemicals to induce birth seven months early, her sister also commented ‘she was beaten, blindfolded and thrown down on a bed, and forced to sign a document she couldn’t even read.’ Because she already had a five-year-old daughter, said Feng, local birth-control authorities ordered her to pay a fine of £4,000. Recounting the horror, Feng said she told the family planning department she could not pay the fine because her mother-in-law needed money for cancer treatment. As a result of forced abortions and birth control, the gender balance of the Chinese population has become distorted. Today it is thought that men outnumber women by more than 60 million and as there are less children, China now has an ageing population and future prospects for the country are at an all time low.
However horrific the one child policy has been for Chinese women, there is no doubt that is has been effective in controlling the growth of population. The birth rate has fallen since 1979, and the rate of population growth is now 0.7% per year. Resulting in less overcrowding of China’s big cities and an overall decrease in pollution which in recent years has been a huge problem for the country. According to a 2008 survey undertaken by the Pew research centre, 76% of the Chinese population supports the policy, and believe that the policy was necessary to reduce the constant overcrowding and overall improve their living environment and quality of life. Many even refuse to believe that the government forced abortions and sterelisations, even though there is clear, conclusive evidence that the events did take place. China has since ‘relaxed’ the policy, since the end of 2013, couples are allowed to have two children if either parent is an only child.
Many people in China deem it unfair that ethnic minorities and some rural families were permitted several children whilst they could only have one, should the government be able to have control only these women’s bodies? Is it an infringement of human rights? 25% of respondents in a survey for the Southern Metropolis Daily said they would now favour single children as marriage partners as they would then be permitted to have two children.
Throughout the whole world the population is set to increase by millions between 2010 and 2050. At the moment China is the only country that has used a radical policy to reduce population growth, however countries such as India and Nigeria have no policies in place, together by 2050 it is estimated that their population will have increased by 600million. This is due to the lack of education for women in third world countries, showing that poverty is a contributing factor to population growth. If there are no measures put into place and no effort is made at all to control the population then the situation will become more out of control than it already is. China’s one child policy is brutally unfair and unjust, but has proved to work.
chloetomkins1 