China’s One Child Policy Violates Human Rights Essay

In recent decades, there has been a shift in the definition of a family to better suit the new emerging alternative family arrangements in today’s society. A family is defined as the natural and fundamental group unit of society especially in relation to the upbringing of children. However, this Eurocentric, nuclear family construct has evolved as alternative family arrangements such as de-facto and same sex relationships as well as adoptive families have become part of the term ‘family’. The domestic legal system has introduced and amended laws to deal with these contemporary issues. Similarly, there are non-legal responses such as the media and various non-governmental organisations, which advocate for various changes to the law in order to achieve greater justice for these families.

Since 1980, China has made its people the subject of an intrusive and unfair, One Child Policy. This policy was the result of Chinese officials becoming worried of the countries jump in population from 1960 to 1980 causing a widespread lack of resources, so they decided to induct a law that would make force Chinese citizens to be limited to one child. Because of this controversial policy the question has been raised, did the one child policy positively or negatively effect China? The one child policy did negatively effect China and its people, because it resulted in gender discrimination, unjust punishments and was unnecessary due to the already declining fertility rate.

Finally, The One Child Policy was a good idea because it pushed academic success, lessens the load on the environment, and lowers fertility rates which then lowers the population density of already crowded China. Although China’s One Child Policy was a great idea and has helped China significantly, it has created a gender imbalance of over 32 million males than there are

The final reason that the one-child policy was a bad idea is because of the fact that China’s fertility rate was already decreasing and was one of the lowest rates compared to Brazil, South Korea, and Thailand in 1979 making the policy pointless and unnecessary. “The claim by the Chinese officials that the one child policy has helped avert over 400 million births simply cannot be substantiated by

Which will cause a huge drop in the population in the future, since there won't be enough females for the men to reproduce with. If this occurs,China’s economy will start to fall because there will be too many jobs and not enough

With more than 1.3 billion people, China has to think about a solution and find ways to deal with its population explosion. In order to have control over population, in 1970, a policy named China’s One Child Policy was introduced. Mingliang argues that, “China, through the one-child policy, has instituted the most aggressive, comprehensive population policy in the world” (1). This policy limits all families in the Republic of China to have only one child, regardless of the sex: however, within this policy there are some exceptions. It is possible to have two children only if the first child is born with a disability, if parents work in a high risk job, if the couple lives in villages, or if the family is a non- Han, otherwise you are

The punishments for China’s one child policy are extremely harsh and inhumane. For instance relatives were put in jail because they were related to a family who broke the law by having two boys (Hanworth n.p). Other cases include: a baby being run over by a car by Chinese officials, a mother being forced to abort seven months in her pregnancy, and a doctor killed a baby right after he/she was born (Maessan n.p.) It’s hard to believe people would find it ok to murder children for population problems.

The freedom that Americans have to raise their children according to their beliefs starkly contradicts the one-child policy implemented in China. The one-child policy was a program designed to restrict Chinese families to only one child, with severe consequences lined up for those who disobeyed. It was met with harsh opposition, from Chinese citizens as well as from other countries. The policy succeeded in creating smaller families, but it unleashed a slew of unintended consequences, including a higher crime rate and an increase in the elderly population, who only have one child to support them. Most significantly, the policy caused a national “gendercide” and an influx of Chinese bachelors, indirectly causing an increase in sex trafficking in and around the country. Did the one-child policy achieve its intended effect, or did it cause many more inadvertent effects that it could not control?

One reason I have this belief is, China is very male dominated and through the One-Child Policy, women have become more empowered and treasured. For example, “Perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of the one-child policy have been urban singleton daughters. Their parents’ only treasure, since the 1980s single daughters in China’s cities have enjoyed privileged childhoods little different from their male counterparts… With no brothers to compete for their parents’ attention and resources,... these teens have been socialized to value educational and career success and provided the resources with which to achieve it.” (Susan Greenhalgh, Document D). Opposing the gender norms, women are getting better education, more job opportunities, and markets are gearing towards women. The One-Child Policy was effective in shining light on women and advancing their

Due to the one-child policy there are many serious human rights infractions. Since the policy has been in effect, there have been more than 400 million prevented births ("China:

There are many different laws and policies that the government put in place which will affect various social issues; in this case the family. Some sociologists believe that this social policy the government enforces can make the family far more diverse; whilst others disagree. An example of this social policy can be in China there is a ‘one-child policy’, which limits families from having more than one child and in the instance that they do have more the government can inflict a series of penalties, this policy is in place to control the population of China; ‘For a prosperous, powerful nation and a happy family, please use birth planning’. In the following item I intend to discuss how social policies and laws in the UK may have affect the

What is important to understand the One Child Policy is the reasoning behind it and what spurred the Chinese government to do something so drastic. When Mao Zedong’s communist rule was in full

First reason, the number of government supported children is enormous, and with a projected baby boom on its way after the previous recession. To fix that the government could put in place laws restricting the number of children a family can have. The government could either restrict a family’s number of children based on total income. As in low class to middle low class families have one or two children. Where at the same time the high class, and middle high class families might have two to four children. Or the government could put in a law for everyone. They could much like china did and only allow one child to be born. Or base it off of the number of parents raising the children. One parent, one child, or two parents, to two children. Instead of putting laws on childbirth, they

Gender inequality is a huge effect that the one child policy has. In China the women will continue to be looked as the lower sex. Many couples that have a baby girl abandon or kill the child. This then creates a gender imbalance. More males are born than females. This leads to women being bought by men for marriage. Gender inequality is a serious problem that is created by the one child policy.

There were exemptions for certain groups of people, for instance ethnic minorities (Cao 2009: 97), Hong Kong and Macau, and foreign people in China are exempted from the policy. The ethnic minorities accounted for around 8% of China’s population, which was approximately 105 million people. In rural areas, couples were allowed to have a second child if the first child was a girl or disabled, but the second birth had to be spaced by 5 years from the first birth (Gu 2007: 130; Greenhalgh 1986: 495-498). The policy was not applied evenly throughout the country, and it varied considerably in different areas (Short 1998: 373).