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China bans selective abortion to fix imbalance
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-07-16 09:43
China will strictly ban selective abortion of female
foetuses in an attempt to reverse a gender imbalance in the ratio of
newborn boys to girls, official said Thursday.
Newly-married
couples receive gifts during the May 21 launch ceremony for the "Care for
Girls" project. Jointly launched by the Beijing Population and Family
Planning Commission and the local government of Beijing's Changping
District, the project is aimed at promoting equality between girls and
boys among parents-to-be and create a favourable enviroment for girls'
personal development. [newsphoto] |
In China 117 boys are born for every 100 girls, according to the
latest statistics, the Xinhua news agency said. A normal newborn sex ratio is
103-107 boys for 100 girls.
Senior family planning official Zhao Baige said the government plans to
reverse the imbalance by 2010 by banning sex-selective abortion and launching
campaigns to end the tradition of valuing boys more than girls.
"Any individual or
medical organisation offering illegal sex-selective abortion services will take legal responsibility," Zhao
said.
Zhao blamed the imbalance on the traditional preference
for boys, which remains strong in the countryside despite campaigns emphasising
sex equality, and a poor rural social security
system which forces people to become dependent on their children in old
age.
Zhao's commission is undertaking a national "Care for Girls"
project to educate people to give up their traditional preference for male
children.
Additionally, parents who have two girls, as well as one-child parents and
those with a disabled child, will be given 1,200 yuan (US$144) by the central
government annually when they reached 60 years old in some rural pilot project
areas.
The pilot project is expected to be spread to all of China next year.
This project will also help China to set up a comprehensive social assurance
system for helping one-child families better look after parents in an aging
society.
According to statistics in 2000, China has 88.3 million people over 65, who
account for 7 per cent of the total population.
In Chinese rural areas, the majority of the old parents still depend on
support from their children instead of an unestablished national social
assurance system.
President Hu Jintao earlier this year said that bringing China's newborn sex
ratio back to a normal level had become one of the country's important goals in
the coming 10 years, Xinhua said.
The arrival of new technologies, especially ultrasound scanning, has made it possible for Chinese
couples to know the sex of their unborn baby and, in many cases, have an
abortion if it was a girl.
Only seven provinces and regions have a
normal newborn sex ratio, namely Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Guizhou,
Tibet, Ningxia, Qinghai and Xinjiang, which are mostly home to ethnic minorities.
The other 24 provinces, regions and municipalities all have a sex
ratio of more than 110 boys to 100 girls.
The gender imbalance has led to warnings that millions
of Chinese men will be unable to find partners in coming decades and led to a
major problem with trafficking in women and children.
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