China’s first national family planning law took effect on Sunday, with the aim of preventing families which violate China’s ”one-child policy” from facing unnecessarily harsh punishment and standardising policy, state media said.
The country’s 22-year-old policy restricting couples from having more than one child to control the huge population has been widely violated in the countryside where farmers want sons and see having children as an investment in old-age security.
Local officials have punished couples who have more children than they should by excessive methods including jailing and trying them in kangaroo courts, razing their houses and confiscating farm animals.
In some cases, overzealous family planning workers have forced women to be sterilised, have late-term abortions and have been accused of infanticide.
The new law seeks to standardise population and birth control policy, the official Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Weiqing, minister of the state family planning commission (SFPC) saying.
”The birth of the law will put an end to localised rules and regulations governing population and family planning efforts”, Zhang said.
It ordains that family planning is a duty of Chinese citizens, but that they are entitled to legal protection.
It especially stresses that no abuse of official power, obtrusion or infringement on public rights are allowed in carrying out family planning tasks, Xinhua said.
Instead of fines previously randomly determined by local officials, couples who violate the law will pay a set ”social alimony”, — a form of compensation to society for having more children then they are supposed to.
Officials in Guangdong province on Saturday said urban residents of the relatively wealthy southern province would now have to pay a fine of between three and six years’ income if they violate the one-child policy.
The national law also requires sex education for students, which is nearly non-existent in China’s schools, with surveys showing a majority of youngsters learn about sex through pornography.
The change comes as Chinese teenagers are becoming more sexually active.
Previous state media reports have said the law will also encourage women to marry and have children at a later age and also prohibits the use of ultrasound technology to determine the foetus’ gender and abortion based on gender preferences, both of which are widespread in rural areas.
China’s population, which stands at 1,3-billion and is the largest in the world, is forecast to be 1,6-billion around 2050.
China’s one-child policy restricts the number of children couples can have to one for city residents and two for rural workers, if their first child is a girl.
Ethnic minorities are permitted to have two or three children because of their small population and because they live in areas with harsh natural conditions.
Beijing credits the policy for helping the country avoid 300-million births since its introduction.
Critics, however, say China could be more effective at preventing excess births by raising peasants’ standard of living and setting up a social-security system for the elderly who rely on their children, especially sons, to take care of them in their old age. – Sapa-AFP