SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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2001
COERCIVE POPULATION CONTROL IN CHINA:
NEW EVIDENCE OF FORCED ABORTION AND FORCED STERILIZATION
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
OCTOBER 17, 2001
Serial No. 107–49
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations
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COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
RON PAUL, Texas
NICK SMITH, Michigan
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania
DARRELL E. ISSA, California
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ERIC CANTOR, Virginia
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
BRIAN D. KERNS, Indiana
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY, Georgia
EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
JIM DAVIS, Florida
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
BARBARA LEE, California
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
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GRACE NAPOLITANO, California
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DIANE E. WATSON, California
THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel
ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director
GROVER JOSEPH REES, Professional Staff Member and Counsel
LIBERTY DUNN, Staff Associate
C O N T E N T S
WITNESSES
Josephine Guy, Director of Governmental Affairs, America 21
Stephen W. Mosher, President, Population Research Institute
Harry Wu, Director, Laogai Research Foundation
Yemlibike Fatkulin, Asylum Seeker from East Turkestan
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Henry J. Hyde, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois, and Chairman, Committee on International Relations: Prepared statement
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The Honorable Eric Cantor, a Representative in Congress from the State of Virginia: Prepared statement
The Honorable Joseph R. Pitts, a Representative in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania: Prepared statement
Josephine Guy: Prepared statement
Stephen W. Mosher: Prepared statement
Harry Wu: Prepared statement
Yemlibike Fatkulin: Prepared statement
APPENDIX
Letter to the Honorable Henry J. Hyde from Stirling Scruggs, Director of Information and External Relations, United Nations Population Fund
COERCIVE POPULATION CONTROL IN CHINA: NEW EVIDENCE OF FORCED ABORTION AND FORCED STERILIZATION
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2001
House of Representatives,
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Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:30 a.m. in Room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry J. Hyde (Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Chairman HYDE. The Committee will come to order. Over 20 years ago it first became apparent that the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was compelling women to abort their ''unauthorized'' unborn children. It also appeared that the government was forcing women—and sometimes men—to undergo sterilization when they had had the maximum number of children the government thought they should have. The usual method was intense persuasion, using all of the economic, social, and psychological tools a totalitarian state has at its disposal. When these methods failed, the woman could be taken by force to a government birth control clinic for the abortion or sterilization.
Throughout the history of this coercive program, the government of China has insisted that the program is fully voluntary. In recent years they have conceded there may have been isolated abuses by overzealous local officials, but that these were strictly unauthorized.
In January 1998, the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA—which had long had a close working relationship with the People's Republic of China family planning officials—signed a new, 4-year agreement with Beijing. Under this agreement UNFPA would operate in 32 counties throughout China. In each of these counties, the central and local authorities had agreed there would be no coercion and no birth quotas, and that abortion would not be promoted as a method of family planning.
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Some of us were skeptical about whether UNFPA was really the right organization to ensure against coercion in China. UNFPA officials had consistently defended the Chinese family planning program against accusations of forced abortion and forced sterilization, even long after other observers had concluded that these abuses did occur. Judging from this unhappy experience, we worried about whether UNFPA officials would recognize coercion when they saw it. But hope triumphed over experience, and the then Administration supported the new agreement.
Today's testimony suggests that, after 3 years, the new arrangement is not working. Our lead witness today, Josephine Guy, just returned from one of UNFPA's 32 model counties. She will testify and present videotaped evidence of forced abortion, of the destruction of houses belonging to families who have had unauthorized children, and of similar abuses that have been associated with the People's Republic of China population control program. Other witnesses will testify that this new evidence is consistent with the history of the program and with the current situation in the rest of China.
This evidence suggests that the same harsh reality still prevails in the so-called model county that has long prevailed throughout China. The only difference appears that coercion is now cloaked behind the rhetoric of voluntarism, shielded from criticism by yet another international seal of approval.
I regret that the legislative schedule prevents me from hearing this testimony first-hand, but I look forward to reviewing it, along with a UNFPA response which I understand will be placed in the record.
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Congressman Christopher Smith, the Vice Chairman of the Committee, will chair the remainder of the hearing, and I will carefully consider with him and other Members of the Committee the appropriate legislative response to the evidence we receive today. And now I am pleased to yield to Mr. Lantos, the Senior and Ranking Democrat Member of the Committee. Mr. Lantos.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hyde follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE HENRY J. HYDE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, AND CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Over twenty years ago it first became apparent that the government of the People's Republic of China was compelling women to abort their ''unauthorized'' unborn children. It also appeared that the government was forcing women—and sometimes men—to undergo sterilization when they had had the maximum number of children the government thought they should have. The usual method was intense persuasion, using all the economic, social, and psychological tools a totalitarian state has at its disposal. When these methods failed, the woman could be taken by physical force to a government birth control clinic for the abortion or sterilization.
Throughout the sordid history of this coercive program, the government of China has insisted that the program is fully voluntary. In recent years they have conceded that there may have been isolated abuses by overzealous local officials, but that these were strictly unauthorized.
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In January of 1998 the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA—which had long had a close working relationship with PRC family planning officials—signed a new four-year agreement with Beijing. Under this agreement, UNFPA would operate in 32 counties throughout China. In each of these counties, the central and local authorities had agreed that there would be no coercion and no birth quotas, and that abortion would not be promoted as a method of family planning.
Some of us were skeptical about whether UNFPA was really the right organization to ensure against coercion in China. UNFPA officials had consistently defended the Chinese family planning program against accusations of forced abortion and forced sterilization, even long after other observers had concluded that these abuses did occur. Judging from this unhappy experience, we worried about whether UNFPA officials would recognize coercion when they saw it. But hope triumphed over experience, and the then Administration supported the new agreement.
Today's testimony suggests that, after three years, the new arrangement is not working. Our lead witness today, Ms. Josephine Guy, just returned from one of UNFPA's 32 model counties. She will testify and present videotaped evidence of forced abortion, of the destruction of houses belonging to families who have had unauthorized children, and of similar abuses that have been associated with the PRC population control program. Other witnesses will testify that this new evidence is consistent with the history of the program and with the current situation in the rest of China.
This evidence suggests that the same harsh reality still prevails in this so-called model county that has long prevailed throughout China. The only difference appears to be that coercion is now cloaked behind the rhetoric of voluntarism, shielded from criticism by yet another international seal of approval.
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I regret that the legislative schedule will prevent me from hearing this testimony first-hand, but I look forward to reviewing it, along with a UNFPA response which I understand will be placed in the record. Congressman Christopher Smith, the Vice Chairman of the Committee, will chair the remainder of the hearing, and I will carefully consider with him and with other Members of the Committee the appropriate legislative response to the evidence we receive today.
Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Permit me at the outset to turn the Committee's attention to the pre-eminent issue facing our nation today, America's war on terrorism. As we convene today's hearing, my thoughts are with the brave American servicemen and women flying over the skies of Afghanistan, seeking to rid the world of the terrorists who seek sanctuary there. My thoughts are also with the victims of terrorist attacks here at the home front, especially those who are suffering from exposure to the anthrax virus. Meeting the pressing challenges of terrorism will require the undivided attention of our nation and of this Congress for many months to come.
Mr. Chairman, the war we now wage is more than a military enterprise. It is also a moral enterprise. To defeat terrorism, we must remain true to America's values. I applaud President Bush's efforts to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people by air dropping humanitarian supplies while targeting their Taliban tormentors with military action. This is precisely the message America must convey to the world.
Scores of NGOs have long been attempting to aid the Afghan people. Among the supportive organizations is the United Nations Population Fund. The UNFPA last month launched a 4 1/2-million-dollar campaign to provide the thousands of families streaming across the Afghanistan border with clean supplies to deliver babies, equipment for local hospitals that will treat pregnant Afghan women, and counseling for victims of trauma. The UNFPA is doing its share to mitigate the impending humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and save lives.
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Today's hearing is not focused on this important initiative but on a small element of UNFPA's work, its programs in China. Nevertheless, I welcome the opportunity to share my thoughts on that subject. As every civilized person, Mr. Chairman, I have long been a staunch critic of coerced abortions wherever they may occur. Such abhorrent practices violate every principle of human decency, and as a strong supporter of a woman's right to choose, I cannot conceive of anything more offensive than robbing women of their freedom to control their own bodies and their own destinies.
The Communist regime in Beijing is among the most repressive in the world, systematically abusing the human rights of its citizens. Forced abortions are but one element of Beijing's campaign to control the Chinese people. It is for these reasons that Congress years ago put in place safeguards to prevent U.S. funds from supporting UNFPA's China program. By reducing America's contribution to the UNFPA dollar for dollar by the amount the organization spends in China and by establishing a separate account for U.S. funds that cannot be commingled with UNFPA's China account, Americans have not underwritten any of the organization's initiatives, however benign, in China.
Let me stress again, not a dime of U.S. taxpayers' money is currently going to support UNFPA activities in China. By establishing these safeguards, we have permitted the UNFPA to continue its valuable work in other areas. Currently, the UNFPA channels over $280 million in donations annually from over 100 nations to millions of families, women, and children worldwide who require reproductive health care. UNFPA's efforts are directed at reducing infant and maternal mortality rates, promoting safe deliveries, empowering women and meeting the needs of mothers, alleviating the abject poverty that stunts the growth of so many children, and countless other worthy causes.
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In particular, UNFPA's organized family planning programs represent one of the most successful development efforts ever. Through these programs fertility rates have been reduced from six to three children per woman on average, dramatically improving the health of women and their children worldwide.
UNFPA deserves America's wholehearted support. As Congress considers new funding levels for UNFPA, I urge all of my colleagues to match the Senate's $39 million request and not remain at the $25 million level currently contained in the House version of the foreign operations bill. We cannot afford to continue shortchanging this most important program.
Mr. Chairman, as we consider UNFPA's China program today, let us not lose sight of the valuable work it is doing around the globe, including in Afghanistan. Support for the United Nations Population Fund is squarely in America's national interests and clearly in keeping with American values. I would like to ask, Mr. Chairman, to insert in the record a UNFPA letter on the subject.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY [presiding.] Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you, Mr. Lantos. Ladies and gentlemen, civilizations and cultures can be judged by how they treat women, children, old people, and strangers. Those who are the most vulnerable invariably bring out the kindness in every society, but in like manner they bring out the cruelty.
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One of the most horrific abuses ever practiced on women and children is forced abortion. I do not think we can even begin to imagine the pain and suffering inflicted upon women who are told by their government that the child that they are carrying and protecting in their body must be brutally killed with chemical weapons, poison shots, or dismembered with a surgical knife.
I do not even think we can begin to comprehend what goes through a young woman's mind as she sits in the waiting room of a government family planning clinic, having been summoned there, knowing that her entire future and employment situation and that of her family is dependent on the government-ordered death of her unborn child. The terror of forced abortion is a human rights abuse of the greatest magnitude, and it is carried out against women and children with appalling and sickening efficiency in the People's Republic of China.
I would note parenthetically, we got at least a glimpse into the horror of forced abortion when this Committee and our Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights convened a series of hearings on this terrible practice. We actually heard from women who had been forced to have abortions, some of whom had come over on the Golden Venture, one woman who had an abortion at 6 months' gestation. Another woman talked about how she had found a baby girl who had been abandoned, took that baby girl unto herself as her own, only to get a knock in the middle of the night by family planning cadres to be told that she, too, must now undergo a forced abortion.
Since 1979 children in the PRC are presumed illegal and totally expendable unless an explicit birth authorization is given by the government. If that permission is not granted, the mother is cruelly punished with a forced abortion and the child is murdered.
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The one-child policy of China, like the forced-abortion policy of the Nazis, constitutes wholesale crimes against humanity. The Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal got it absolutely right half a century ago, and forced abortion is no less a crime against humanity today.
On June 10, 1998, when I was the Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, I chaired a shocking hearing on forced abortion and sterilization in China. ''The View from the Inside'' was the title. In that hearing we heard testimony from Mrs. Gau, who is a senior official of the government of China in what they euphemistically called a family planning clinic in Fujing Province. Mrs. Gau could no longer live with herself while continuing to do this work.
She came to the United States—as a matter of fact, Harry Wu, one of the our witnesses today, was instrumental in bringing her here. He has a tremendous representation for his human rights work in China, having spent years in the Laogai himself. The first hearing that Congress ever had on the Laogai, I would note, was a result of Harry Wu's work in bringing survivors from the Laogai or the Gulag system. So when he speaks on any issue of human rights in China, we ought to pay attention.
He was able to facilitate Mrs. Gau's coming to the United States, and she testified before our Committee. She said, by day I was a monster and by night a wife and mother. She detailed in excruciatingly horrid detail the kind of coercion that was routinely visited upon the women at her clinic and throughout China.
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We heard information about the fines that the government imposes on couples who have unauthorized children and how the family planning gestapo destroys the homes of these individuals. They take property of those who cannot pay the fines. We heard that women are psychologically and physically pressured to abort unauthorized children to the point of being literally dragged to the abortion mill.
Mrs. Gau told us that the Chinese population control program employs a network of paid informants. That is something we had not heard before that testimony—to report on unauthorized pregnancies of neighbors, families, and friends—the neighborhood block committee taken to a new, lower level of keeping track of that kind of activity, whether or not a woman was carrying a child. She also reported forced sterilization was even used as a punishment for other things to be imposed upon men and women by the family planning cadres. Chinese population control cadres, as she told us and others have since strongly concurred with, conduct nighttime raids on couples suspected of having unauthorized children.
And I just say again parenthetically, imagine the idea of children being illegal. My wife and I have four children. In China, three of them would be dead. Any of you who might have children, unless they were first explicitly authorized by the government as part of the one-child-per-couple policy, and even if you had not had any, if you were not in line to have that child, the government steps in and destroys your child. They keep detailed records on the sexual activity of every man and woman in their jurisdiction. So much for privacy. And to make the coercive regime complete, the family planning centers even have prison cells with bars to detain those who resist forced abortion and sterilization.
I think it is appropriate and necessary that today this Committee, the Congress, and the President, and other parliaments need to look into this issue very, very aggressively and with very strict scrutiny. This whole idea of forced abortion in China—we need to determine if anything has changed because we have been hearing the line for the last 20 years, that ''Oh, now it is different,'' only to find upon further inspection that it in most cases actually worsened. We must also reevaluate our support of the United Nations Population Fund in the context of whether or not they support this most terrible of human rights abuses.
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It is worth noting that throughout the 1980's and 1990's, when most observers had concluded that coercion was an integral part of the PRC program, the UN Population Fund continued to work with the program in a hand-in-glove manner. UNFPA officials, including then-Executive Director, Nafa Sedic, continued to vigorously defend it.
In 1983, the PRC government received the United Nations' Population Award, and this is their quote, ''For the most outstanding contribution to the awareness of population questions.'' In 1989, Executive Director Sedic said in an interview on CBS Television, network television, that, and I quote her, ''The implementation of the policy in China and the acceptance of the policy is purely voluntary. There is no such thing,'' she went on to say, ''as a license to have a birth,'' and so on. What a blatant lie, I say to my colleagues.
In 1991, the official PRC news agency summarized an interview of Sedic, which said, and I quote it again,
''China has every reason to feel proud and pleased with the remarkable achievements made in its family planning policy and control of its population growth over the last 10 years.''
Remember, this was 10 years into the program. She went on to say,
''Now the country could offer its experiences and special experts to help other countries.''
God forbid that other countries would buy into a systematic, coercive regime.
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In January 1998, the UNFPA signed, as Mr. Hyde pointed out, the Chairman of the Full Committee, just a moment ago, a 4-year, $20 million agreement with the PRC. In announcing the program, the UNFPA emphasized that it would work in only 32 counties throughout China and that the PRC government had agreed in these 32 counties there would be no coercion and no birth quotas and that, in keeping with the principles of the program of action adopted at the UN conference on population in Cairo, that abortion would not be promoted as a method of family planning.
In March of this year, the People's Daily quoted the newly appointed Executive Director of the UN Population Fund, Ms. Obaid, and this is the quote from her, she praised that
''Over the past 20 years China has seen notable achievements made in population control by implementing its family planning policy. It has thereupon played an active role in curbing population growth across the world.''
The March People's Daily, also reported during an interview in January, that when taking up her new post, the UNFPA Executive Director said that
''China had adopted practical measures in accordance with their current situation,''
and, again, this is that word,
''has scored remarkable achievements in population control.''
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Imagine, again I say to my colleagues, the wholesale killing of millions of babies and the massive victimization of millions of women is deemed a notable achievement by the top United Nations population control bureaucrat. That seems to me to be breathtakingly cruel. Anyone who carries about human rights should be shocked by those kinds of statements.
Finally, for decades the UNFPA has, and there is no doubt about this, vigorously endorsed, extolled, and shamefully encouraged the most anti-woman, Taliban-like policy in the world: forced abortion. The UNFPA has been a party to egregious human rights abuses against the Chinese people, especially women and children. Their monetary support and systematic whitewashing of the crime of forced abortion and forced sterilization in China is an indictment against them. They should be brought to the Hague, as should the dictatorship in China, for these crimes against women.
Today, we will hear testimony that demonstrates that China still abuses its people in a massive way with forced abortion, and the testimony will show that the UNFPA backs these abuses. Since Mrs. Gau came to tell us about these abuses, the United States has given the UNFPA $46.5 million. Women who have to leave everything to go into hiding, and they are the lucky ones, are nothing short of heroes. It does not happen all that often that they can hide their pregnancy. Most of them succumb to the forced abortion. But those who are the lucky ones are heroes, and we do not even know their names, but they deserve our respect. They certainly do not deserve us funding and increasing the funding to an organization that hunts them down like animals.
I said ''Taliban-like.'' The Taliban totally mistreats its women. The Chinese government and the UNFPA, under the guise of population control, dripping with euphemisms, grossly mistreats its women. And these are millions of women who have been abused. I yield to Mr. Gilman for any opening comments he might have.
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Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting this very important hearing. And I want to thank our witnesses who have taken the time to be with us today. It is a very important issue, and I hope the President in his visit to China—I understand he is leaving today for China—will raise this issue with the leaders of the People's Republic of China.
I have always been a supporter of family planning, but that is voluntary planning and not any coercive or forced abortion planning, and I am distressed to hear that this is still ongoing despite the fact that we have been raising this issue on a number of occasions.
I also note, and I am sorry that Mrs. Obaid cannot be with us today, the Executive Director of the UN Population Fund. I was reading her letter to the Chairman, dated October 16th, in which she said that the United Nations Population Fund has not, does not, and will not condone coercive activities in China or anywhere else and that it is committed to the recognition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and condemns coercion in all forms and does not support China's one-child policy. That is encouraging to hear that. We want to make certain that that is going to be abided by.
So I look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses. I particularly want to welcome back Harry Wu, who testified before us on prior occasions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for conducting this hearing.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Gilman. And just for the record, it ought to be noted that we did invite the UNFPA to be here, to send a representative, because I and many others have multiple questions that we would like to ask them in an open hearing like this. Yes, we have received a letter, but we would much have preferred an honest, candid discussion with them, and they, for whatever reason, are not here.
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Mr. GILMAN. I hope at some future date we can invite Mrs. Obaid to attend. I know she stated on the short notice that she was not able to attend.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Chabot? Mr. Cantor?
Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Chairman, I commend you for holding this hearing and would like to submit a statement for the record.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cantor follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ERIC CANTOR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA
According to the Population Research Institute of America, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is ''participating in the management and support of a program of forced abortion and forced sterilization in China.'' U.S. taxpayer funds used to support China's pro-abortion policies is unacceptable. Moreover, UNFPA's unwillingness to fully disclose the location and addresses of their 32 county-level offices in China is further indication that U.S. taxpayer funds should be cut off.
The editorial pages of my local paper, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, weighed in on this matter with the following comments: ''According to the London Sunday Telegraph, a county in China has received orders instructing it to conduct 20,000 abortions and sterilizations by year's end. And what if enough women do not wish to undergo the procedure? Tough. Perhaps this is another example of the Chinese government's mellowing predicted by those who supported the decision to hold the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.''
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President Ronald Reagan and President George Herbert Walker Bush were right to suspend U.S. taxpayer contributions to the UNFPA from 1986–1993. The time is now to end contributions to the UNFPA. It is the right thing to do!
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you. Without objection your full statement will be made a part of the record. Ms. Davis? And Mr. Pitts?
Mr. PITTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for giving us an opportunity to confront this horrifying and frightening practice that the Chinese government is using to control population. Let me begin by saying that I am absolutely convinced that human life is a gift and a fundamental right. It is difficult for me to come to terms with how the Chinese government can disregard the miracle and sanctity of life and use such coercive tactics in implementing its one child policy. I am horrified and repulsed by the attitude that life can be so easily extinguished whenever it serves their purpose.
And I think it is important to recognize that when innocent life is this devalued by officials, we have to wonder whether any human has value in that society. I am appalled at the Chinese slogans, such as ''better to have more graves than more than one child.'' These slogans are disgusting displays that show an utter disrespect for life.
Further, as part of its Population Control Campaign, the UNFPA is shipping more Pregnancy Termination Kits than much-needed food and basic health supplies. Taking lives seems to be more important to them than protecting lives.
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Why is the entire world grieving along with the United States over the recent attacks by terrorists on innocent, unsuspecting civilians? Nations mourn and move to action because they realize that when a group or nation has such disregard for life, no one is safe. When individuals do not consider other human lives to be valuable, then all are vulnerable.
So not only are these coercive tactics destructive; they also destroy the unit that is functional to all stable and productive societies: the family.
Our nation is currently at war against terrorism and our mission is to protect the rights of freedom-loving people everywhere. Today we want to confront evidence that one of our most precious freedoms is being threatened. It is time for us to start taking this evidence seriously. The Chinese government claims these programs are voluntary but victims report that the process is clearly not voluntary, but coercive. Women all over China report being victimized for their ability and desire to bear children.
As we evaluate our response, the United States must examine our support for programs that assist China in carrying out this abusive program. I want to thank the expert witnesses for coming today. I ask that you be honest and be direct. It is important that we properly understand whether rights and freedoms are being violated in China and what the United States can do to make it clear that such disregard and disrespect for human life is something we will not tolerate. And I will submit my entire statement for the record. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pitts follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOSEPH R. PITTS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
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Mr. Chairman, thank you for giving us this opportunity to confront the horrifying and frightening practices the Chinese government is using as it tries to control population.
Let me begin by saying that I am absolutely convinced that human life is a gift and a fundamental right. It is difficult for me to come to terms with how the Chinese government can disregard the miracle and sanctity of life and use such coercive tactics in implementing its one child policy. I am horrified and repulsed by the attitude that life can be so easily extinguished whenever it does not serve one's purposes.
I think it is important to recognize that when innocent life is this devalued by family planning officials, we have to wonder whether any human has value in that society.
I am appalled at Chinese slogans such as ''. . . better to have more graves than more than one child.'' These slogans are disgusting displays that show an utter disrespect for life.
Further, as part of its Population Control Campaign, the UNFPA is shipping more Pregnancy Termination Kits than much-needed food and basic health supplies. Taking lives seems to be more important to them than protecting lives.
When innocent and vulnerable lives are so deliberately taken, we can no longer pretend that this issue doesn't impact us.
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Why is the entire world grieving along with the United States over the recent attacks by terrorists on innocent and unsuspecting civilians? Nations mourn and move to action because they realize that when a group or nation has such a disregard for life, no one is safe. When individuals don't consider other human lives to be valuable, then all are vulnerable.
Not only do we have a responsibility to protect and care for those who are most defenseless and innocent, but we are also ourselves vulnerable as soon as we fail to confront such disrespect of life.
Not only are these coercive tactics destructive to the sanctity of life, but they also destroy the unit that is fundamental to all stable and productive societies—the family. How can we support a program that is guilty of such inhumane treatment of women and robs individuals of any choice in planning their families? We must send a clear message that as long as the Chinese government violates basic rights, they must not to be an example for the rest of the world.
Our nation is currently at war against terrorism and our mission is to protect the rights of freedom loving people everywhere. We are here today to confront evidence that one of our most precious freedoms is being threatened—the freedom to live. Just as our war against terrorism is a war for all nations, this battle for the right to life in China is a battle that belongs to us as well.
It is time for us to start taking this evidence seriously. We must have an active response that communicates that we absolutely do not tolerate such destruction of life. We have been told reportedly by the UNFPA that tactics have changed but it is consistently reported that there has not, in truth, been any change.
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The Chinese government claims these programs are voluntary but victims report that the process is clearly not voluntary, but coercive. Women all over China report being victimized for their ability and desire to bear children. Mr. Mosher, your book details the horrors of pregnant women who are taken to abortion clinics in handcuffs. They are imprisoned until they relent to abortion or sterilization. These procedures are carried out without consent. Husbands are imprisoned until wives submit to these child-killing procedures. The skulls of infants are crushed during delivery or formaldehyde is inserted into their heads so that they are born dead. Food, electricity, and water are refused to couples that do not comply with the Chinese government's barbaric policies. Their furniture, livestock, and homes are confiscated or demolished. Less obtrusive but still involuntary is the social compensation fee given to couples that limit the number of children they have. Claims that these programs are voluntary are lies. These people are not given any sort of freedom or choice.
As we evaluate our response, the United States must examine its own support for programs that assist China in carrying out this abusive program. In good conscience, the United States simply should not support the UNFPA while it is funding and actively promoting China's abhorrent and oppressive population control program.
I thank these expert witnesses for coming here today. I ask that you be honest and that you be direct. It is important that we properly understand whether rights and freedoms are being violated in China. I want to know what the United States can do to make it clear that such a disregard and disrespect for human life is something we absolutely will not tolerate.
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It is time that the world begin to treat life as the miracle that it is. Life and freedom is a blessing and it to be valued and protected.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Pitts. Before introducing our distinguished panel of witnesses, I would just like to note that we will suspend the customary time limit on the witnesses, but I would ask that you keep your statement within 10 minutes if you can. But the information, I think, is so important that to limit it with a time limit would do injustice to the information that you carry.
I would like to welcome our panel, and we will begin with Ms. Josephine Guy, who is the Director of Government Affairs for America 21. She is currently a Litigation Specialist for Amshoff & Amshoff, Attorneys at Law in Louisville, Kentucky, where she has provided paralegal support for various malpractice cases. Ms. Guy also served 4 years of active military service in Military Intelligence as a Sergeant in the U.S. Army.
Mr. Stephen Mosher is the President of the Population Research Institute (PRI), a non-profit educational organization devoted to population, demographic, and security issues. In the early 1980's, Mr. Mosher was among the first American scholars to conduct extended field research in China among the rural Chinese, and he was instrumental in revealing to the world the reality of forced abortion and forced sterilization and their impact on the lives of ordinary Chinese men and women. He paid a dear price for that in terms of those in academia who did not like the fact that he was telling the truth about forced abortion. Mr. Mosher is also a veteran of the United States Navy.
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Mr. Harry Wu is the Executive Director of the Laogai Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization committed to documenting the forced labor and other abuses in Chinese prisons and reform through labor camps—the system that has been called the ''Chinese Gulag.'' He is also a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Imprisoned for 19 years in 12 different forced-labor camps in China, Mr. Wu survived beatings, torture and starvation. He has since become a human rights activist in the free world, campaigning to expose the Laogai and to tell of the abuses that the Chinese government inflicts on its own people.
And finally, Ms. Fatkulin is a Uyghur Muslim from Xinjiang, formerly the independent nation of East Turkmenistan, who came to the United States 2 years ago and received political asylum. If you would begin, Ms. Guy.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPHINE GUY, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, AMERICA 21
Ms. GUY. Mr. Chairman, Members of this Committee, my investigation in China began on September 27, 2001, with three others: two translators and a photographer. We visited a county where the UNFPA was active. Our investigation lasted a total of 4 days. During this time, we had the opportunity to interview many women about methods of family planning which are enforced in their county. Some choked back tears as they told of the abuse they suffer as a result of coercive policies of family planning, while others flocked to tell us their stories of coercion.
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The interviews we conducted were reported in notebooks, on audio and videotape, and additional photographic evidence was obtained. The abuses we documented during this investigation are recent, ongoing, rampant and unrelenting. And they exist in a county with the UNFPA claims that women are free to determine the timing and spacing of their pregnancies.
On the first day of our investigation we interviewed women in a family planning clinic about a mile from the county office of the UNFPA. We saw a 19-year-old and learned that she was too young to be pregnant according to unbending family planning policy. While she was receiving a non-voluntary abortion in an adjacent room, her friends told us that she, indeed, desired to keep her baby, but she had no choice, since the law forbids it.
At another location not far from there, a woman testified that she became pregnant despite an earlier attempt by family planning officials to forcibly sterilize her. That attempt failed. She became pregnant and was forcibly sterilized a second time by family planning doctors and officials. Had she refused, she told us on videotape, family planning crews would have torn her house down.
We were told of efforts by many women to hide their pregnancies from government officials to escape forced abortion so they could give birth to a child they desired. We were told of women having to hide their pregnancies and their children to escape retribution from officials for not having an abortion. We were told of the many so-called ''black children'' in the region who are born out of accord with local birth regulations.
We were also told of the punishments inflicted on those who wish to freely determine for themselves the timing and spacing of their pregnancies. We were told of the non-voluntary use of IUDs and mandatory examinations so that family planning officials can ensure that women have not removed IUDs in violation of policy, and the strict punishment which results from noncompliance of this coercive and inhumane policy.
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One woman we interviewed had heroically escaped forced abortion by hiding in a nearby village. As a result, she testified three people in her mother's family, and six people in her mother-in-law's family, were arrested and thrown into prison. They were released after 4 months imprisonment, but only after a crippling fine of 17,000 RMB was paid family planning officials. That is equivalent to about 2,000 U.S. dollars and 3 years' wages for the Chinese people.
Today, this woman must still pay another 17,000 RMB before her child can be legally registered and permitted to attend school. Additionally, while her relatives were in jail, the Office of Family Planning sent a crew of officials armed with jack hammers to their homes. They destroyed their homes and belongings with these jack hammers.
All interviews were conducted within a few miles from a UNFPA office, in a county where UNFPA contends that coercion does not exist. In a county where UNFPA claims that only voluntarism prevails, we were told by a victim of abuse that family planning policies involving coercion and force are stricter today than ever before.
Through discrete contact made with local officials, we located the County Government Building. Within this building, we located the Office of Family Planning. And within the Office of Family Planning we were able to locate the UNFPA office. Through local officials, we learned that UNFPA works in and through this Office of Family Planning. We photographed the UNFPA office desk, which faces—in fact touches—a desk of the Chinese Office of Family Planning. They literally would have to look at one another all day to do their work.
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We confirmed that all of the locations of the interviews that were conducted fell within this County and under the governance of the County bureaucracy housed in the County Government Building. Prior to my arrival in China, advance research had been done regarding family planning policies and operations in other regions. Preparations had been made for investigating these regions. But due to the information already obtained and mindful of potential risks and dangers to the individuals interviewed, it was decided that I should return home.
Mr. Chairman and Members of this Committee, in this county where UNFPA operates—where UNFPA insists that only voluntarism exists—we were told by victims of coercion themselves that there is, in fact, no trace of voluntarism. There is only coercion, in abundant supply, in this county where UNFPA operates—from within the Office of Family Planning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of this Committee, and God bless you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Guy follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOSEPHINE GUY, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, AMERICA 21
Honorable Chairman, members of this committee: My investigation in China began on September 27, 2001. With three others—two translators and a photographer—our investigation lasted a total of four days.
During this time, we had the opportunity to interview many women about methods of family planning which are enforced in their county. Some choked back tears as they told of the abuse they suffer as a result of coercive policies of family planning, while others flocked to tell us their stories of coercion.
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The interviews we conducted were recorded in notebooks, on audio and videotape, and additional photographic evidence was obtained. The abuses we documented during this investigation are recent, ongoing, rampant and unrelenting. And they exist in a county where the United Nations Population Fund claims that women are free to determine the timing and spacing of pregnancy.
On the first day of our investigation, we interviewed women in a family planning clinic about a mile from the county office of the UNFPA. We interviewed a 19-year-old there who told us she was too young to be pregnant according to the unbending family planning policy. While she was receiving a non-voluntary abortion in an adjacent room, her friends told us that she indeed desired to keep her baby, but she had no choice, since the law forbids.
At another location not far from there, a woman testified that she became pregnant despite an earlier attempt by family planning officials to forcibly sterilize her. That attempt failed. She became pregnant, and was forcibly sterilized a second time by family planning doctors and officials. Had she refused, she told us on videotape, then family planning crews would have torn her house down.
We were told of efforts by many women to hide their pregnancies from government officials, in an attempt to escape forced abortion, so they could give birth to a child they desired. We were told of women having to hide their pregnancies and their children, to escape retribution from officials for not having an abortion. We were told of the many so-called ''black'' children in the region who are born out of accord with local birth regulations. We were also told of the punishments inflicted on those who wish to freely determine for themselves the timing and spacing of pregnancy.
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We were told of the non-voluntary use of IUDs and mandatory examinations so that family planning officials can ensure that women have not removed IUDs in violation of policy, and the strict punishment which result from non-compliance of this coercive and inhumane policy.
One woman we interviewed had heroically escaped forced abortion by hiding in a nearby village. As a result, she testified, three people in her mother's family, and six people in her mother-in-law's family, were arrested and thrown into prison. They were released after four months imprisonment, only after a crippling fine—of 17,000 RMB, (about $2,000 US), equal to about three year's wages)—was paid to family planning officials. Today this wwoman must pay another 17,000 RMB before her child can be legally registered and permitted to attend school. And when her relatives were in jail, the Office of Family Planning sent a crew of officials armed with jack hammers to their homes. They destroyed their homes and belongings with jack hammers.
All interviews were conducted within a few miles from a UNFPA office, in a county where UNFPA contends that coercion does not exist. In a county where UNFPA claims that only voluntarism prevails, we were told by a victim of abuse that family planning policies involving coercion and force are stricter today than ever before.
Through discrete contact made with local officials, we located the County Government Building. Within this building, we located the Office of Family Planning. And within the Office of Family Planning, we located the UNFPA office. Through local officials, we learned the UNFPA works in and through this Office of Family Planning. We photographed the UNFPA office desk, which faces—in fact touches—a desk of the Chinese Office of Family Planning.
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We confirmed that all of the locations of the interviews that were conducted fell within this County and under the governance of the County bureaucracy housed in the County Government Building.
Prior to my arrival in China, advance research had been done regarding family planning policies and operations in other regions. Preparations had been made for investigating these regions. But due to the information already obtained, and mindful of potential risks and dangers to the individuals interviewed, it was decided that I should return home.
Honorable Chairman and members of this committee: in this county where UNFPA operates—where UNFPA insists that only voluntarism exists—we were told by victims of coercion themselves that there is, in fact, no trace of voluntarism in this county. There is only coercion, in abundant supply, in this county where UNFPA operates—from within the Office of Family Planning.
Mr. Chairman: Thank you and God bless.
VIDEO OF TESTIMONIES—(3 MINUTES 45 SECONDS)
(Videotaped testimony obtained September 2001 of woman telling her story of forced sterilization and how the policy has gotten stricter in recent years in a county where UNFPA operates. The interview was given a few miles from UNFPA office.)
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Questioner: ''If you violate the population control regulations by having too many children, what happens to you?''
Woman: ''When I had my children, things were not as strict. Right now, things are very, very strict.''
Questioner: ''What happens to you if you give birth to another child?''
Woman: ''You want to have another child! You think it's that easy to give birth (laughing incredulously)!''
Questioner: ''Would someone come to your house and take you in by force in for an abortion?''
Woman: ''Yes. But they don't need to use force. They simply require you to go.''
Questioner: ''And if you don't go?
Woman (astonished): ''They require you to go and you don't go?''
Questioner: ''What if you say you don't want to go?''
Woman (incredulously): ''What reason could you give [for resisting.] Giving birth to an extra child is difficult, very, very difficult to have a child.''
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Questioner: ''But you yourself had three children. How did this happen?''
Woman: ''First I had two. Then seven years later I had another baby boy. They had already tied my tubes and I had another boy.''
Questioner: ''After you had an operation? After they tied your tubes? How did they know you had a baby?''
Woman: ''They found out. Someone told them.''
Questioner: ''Then the family planning workers came to your house. Did a whole troop of them come?''
Woman: ''A lot of them came. Many, many people.''
Questioner: ''What if you hid?''
Woman: ''That wouldn't work. They would tear down my house.'' (Points at the ceiling). ''They would wreck it.''
Narrator: So she was sterilized a second time, at the government's insistence, and there have been no more children.
(Photo of woman, with child, interviewed September 2001, a short distance from UNFPA office, in county where UNFPA operates and claims coercion does not exist. This interview was recorded on audio tape.)
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Narrator: This woman was pregnant with her second child, and the authorities wanted her to abort . . .
Woman: ''I was four-and-a-half months pregnant. They wanted me to report to the hospital for an abortion but I refused to go. I went into hiding in my mother's village. Then my brother, my older sister, and my younger sister were all arrested. I had no choice but to go somewhere else to hide. They arrested three people in my mother's family but didn't destroy any homes. They arrested six people in my mother-in-law's family and destroyed three homes.''
(Photo of man and damaged home, interviewed September 29, a short distance from UNFPA office, in county where UNFPA operates and claims coercion does not exist. This interview was recorded on audiotape.)
Narrator: When they couldn't find the woman, they attacked her home—and the homes of her relatives—with jackhammers. Her father-in-law describes the damage.
Man: ''Look at this. All of the doors and windows destroyed. Here's a big hole that they knocked in the wall. It took forty bags of cement to repair the holes.''
(Photo of women in waiting room, taken a short distance from UNFPA office. PRI investigators spoke with several women in this photo who confirmed that forced abortion exists in this county where UNFPA operates.)
Narrator: Here in a hospital waiting room, a pregnant woman waits for an abortion. Too young at 19 years of age to get married—the minimum age is 23—she has been ordered to report for an abortion. As she disappears into the operating room, we ask herr three friends here with her: ''Would she like to keep her baby?'' ''Oh, yes,'' they all replied, ''But the law forbids it.''
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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Ms. Guy, thank you very much. My understanding is that you have a video that you would like to show.
Ms. GUY. Yes. We have a video that we would like to show.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I would ask, since there is a reported vote underway on the floor, that we suspend the hearing and then come right back and take up the video and then proceed. We stand in recess for a couple of minutes.
[Whereupon, at 11:10 a.m., a brief recess was taken.]
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. The hearing will reconvene. Obviously, with this anthrax scare continuing to worsen, some of the Members are not coming back, although I am glad to see Ms. Davis is here, and we expect a few others to come back.
Ms. Guy, if you want to proceed, please.
Ms. GUY. Go ahead with the video, please.
[The videotape was played.]
Ms. GUY. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my portion of this testimony.
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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Ms. Guy, thank you very much. Mr. Mosher, if you would proceed.
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN W. MOSHER, PRESIDENT, POPULATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Mr. MOSHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you know, I have been a student of China's one-child policy since the late 1970s, when I became the first American social scientist to conduct a full-length study of a Chinese village. I lived in China from 1979 to 1980, and when I was in the village at the beginning of 1980, the Guangdong provincial government secretly ordered a 1-percent cap on population growth for the year.
Local officials complied the only way they could, by launching a family planning ''high tide'' soon thereafter to terminate as many pregnancies as possible. The rules governing this high tide were simple. No woman was to be allowed to bear a second child within 4 years of her first, and third children were strictly forbidden. Furthermore, all women who had borne three or more children by November 1st of 1979, were to be sterilized.
Over the next few weeks I became an eyewitness to every aspect of this Draconian campaign. I went with young women to family planning ''study sessions'' and saw them harangued and threatened by senior party officials. I watched them as they were taken under escort to the commune clinic and watched—with the permission of local officials who were eager to demonstrate their prowess in birth control to a visiting foreigner—as they were aborted and sterilized.
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During the intervening years I have made periodic trips into China to assess family planning policies, and have commissioned others to undertake such investigations and have closely followed both official pronouncements and reports appearing in the specialized literature and the popular press.
The demands of China's family planners escalated as the eighties unfolded. The one-child policy, first adumbrated by Deng Xiaoping in a 1979 speech, was in place nationwide by 1981. The ''technical policy on family planning'' followed 2 years later. Still enforced today, the technical policy requires IUDs for women of childbearing age with one child, sterilization for couples with two children, usually performed on the woman, and abortions for women pregnant without authorization.
By the mid-1980's, according to Chinese government statistics, birth control surgeries—abortions, sterilizations, and IUD insertions—were averaging more than 30 million a year. Many, if not most, of these procedures were performed on women who submitted only under duress. The principal modification of the one-child policy, these last 20 years, occurred in the mid-'80s when, in response to rising levels of female infanticide, the government relaxed the policy in the countryside for couples whose first child was a girl. In many parts of rural China this has devolved into a de facto two-child policy. Rural officials found the selective enforcement of a fixed policy—one child per couple whose first was a boy and two children for couples whose first was a girl—difficult to manage and allowed everyone two.
Twenty-two years after my initial field research in China, where do we stand right now? Today, the Chinese family planning program continues to be carried out against the popular will by means of a variety of coercive measures. Despite official denials and intermittent efforts to discourage some of the more blatant manifestations of physical, that is bodily, coercion, coercion continues to be, as it has been from the late 1970s, an integral part of the program. Mandatory IUD insertions, sterilizations, and abortions continue.
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The national family planning journal continues to issue thinly disguised injunctions to get the job done by whatever means necessary. The emphasis continues to be on ''real action on effective measures'' and ''practical results.'' Articles in the Chinese media continue to openly speak of the need for coercion in family planning, and senior officials continue to endorse the policy as currently practiced. Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji said 2 years ago that ''China will continue to enforce its effective family planning policy in the new century.'' And in its White Paper on Population released on December 19th of last year, the PRC avows it will continue the one-child policy for another 50 years. The White Paper actually sets a population target of 1.6 billion people by the year 2050, and population targets always lead to abuses.
The Chinese government, as it has for the past two decades, sought to suggest that these targets and quotas will be achieved by ''education'' and ''persuasion.'' As an example of the effectiveness of education and persuasion, the White Paper offered the information that women were putting off the birth of their first child until age 23 and a half in 1998, while in 1970 they gave birth at slightly less than 21 years of age. But this is disingenuous.
The age at first birth has climbed in the People's Republic of China not because of ''education'' and ''persuasion,'' but because women are forbidden to marry until 23, and aborted if they become pregnant out of wedlock. The Chinese government also maintains that local abuses—such as the abortion campaign recently ordered in the Guangdong county of Huaiji—are aberrations. But the program remains highly coercive not because of local deviations from central policies but as a direct, inevitable and intentional consequence of those policies.
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The United Nations Population Fund has supported the one-child policy in China from 1979. Under a program begun in 1998, it operates family planning programs in 32 counties, or county-level municipalities, throughout China. The UNFPA claims that in counties where it is active (1) that reproductive health programs are ''fully voluntary,'' that (2) ''women are free to voluntarily select the timing and spacing of their pregnancies,'' (3) that targets and quotas have been lifted, and that, (4) in keeping with the principles of the 1994 Cairo Program of Action, abortion is not promoted as a method of family planning, and finally, that coercion does not exist.
I have always been of the opinion that, given the characteristic of China's family planning program, and its human rights situation in general, that it was highly unlikely that the UNFPA's claims about its current program are accurate. We now have documentation, from on the ground in China, that its claims are completely false. I refer to the letter that the Chairman received from the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund's representative, which states the UNFPA has not, does not, and will not ever condone coercive activities in China. Yet the UNFPA representative, as we have just heard, sits in the same office with state family planning officials. In fact, their desks touch. These officials authorize and participate in jack hammer campaigns, forced abortions, and forced sterilizations. How likely is it that the UNFPA does not know about these abuses?
And just one final, brief comment. Mr. Lantos praised at the outset of the hearing, the UNFPA's efforts in Afghanistan. I believe this praise may be premature. What precisely is being sent to the Afghani refugees? Does it include manual vacuum aspirators and morning after pills? Is it the same kits that were sent to the Kosovo refugees?
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And this point, too: A known abortionist by the name of Forrest Smith, who lives in the Bay Area of California, has been sent by the United Nations Population Fund to Afghanistan. He owns and operates two abortion clinics in the Bay Area. Again, what precisely is he going to be doing in his provision of medical care to Afghan refugees? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mosher follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF STEPHEN W. MOSHER, PRESIDENT, POPULATION RESEARCH INSTITUTE
INTRODUCTION
I have been a student of China one-child policy since the late 1970s, when I became the first American social scientist to conduct a full-length study of a Chinese village. From 1979 to 1980, I lived in rural Guangdong. At the beginning of 1980, the Guangdong provincial government secretly ordered a 1 percent cap on population growth for the year. Local officials had complied the only way they could—by launching a family planning ''high tide'' soon thereafter to terminate as many pregnancies as possible.
The rules governing this high tide were simple: No woman was to be allowed to bear a second child within four years of her first, and third children were strictly forbidden. Furthermore, all women who had borne three or more children by November 1, 1979, were to be sterilized.
Over the next few weeks I became an eyewitness to every aspect of this draconian campaign. I went with young women to family planning ''study sessions'' and saw them harangued and threatened by senior Party officials. I followed them as they were taken under escort to the commune clinic and watched—with the permission of local officials who were eager to demonstrate their prowess in birth control to a visiting foreigner—as they were aborted and sterilized.
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During the intervening years I have made periodic trips into China to assess family planning policies, have commissioned others to undertake such investigations, and have closely followed both official Chinese pronouncements and reports appearing in the specialized literature and the popular press.
HISTORY OF ONE-CHILD POLICY
The demands of China's family planners escalated as the eighties unfolded. The one-child policy, first adumbrated by Deng Xiaoping in a 1979 speech, was in place nationwide by 1981. The ''technical policy on family planning'' followed two years later. Still in force today, the technical policy requires IUDs for women of childbearing age with one child, sterilization for couples with two children (usually performed on the woman), and abortions for women pregnant without authorization. By the mid-eighties, according to Chinese government statistics, birth control surgeries—abortions, sterilizations, and IUD insertions—were averaging more than thirty million a year. Many, if not most, of these procedures were performed on women who submitted only under duress.
The principal modification of the one-child policy occurred in the mid-eighties when, in response to rising levels of female infanticide, the government relaxed the policy in the countryside for couples whose first child was a girl. In many parts of China this has devolved into a de facto two-child policy, as rural officials found the selective enforcement of a mixed policy—one child for couples whose first child was a boy, two children for couples whose first child was a girl—difficult to manage.
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CURRENT SITUATION
Twenty-two years after my initial field research in China, where do we stand?
Today, the Chinese family planning program continues to be carried out against the popular will by means of a variety of coercive measures. Despite official denials and intermittent efforts to discourage some of the more blatant manifestations of physical, that is, bodily, coercion, coercion continues to be, as it has been from the late 1970s, an integral part of the program. Mandatory IUD insertions, sterilizations, and abortions continue. The national family planning journal continues to issue thinly disguised injunctions to get the job done by whatever means necessary. The emphasis continues to be on ''real action,'' ''effective measures,'' and ''practical results.''
Articles in the Chinese media openly speak of the need for coercion in family planning, and senior officials continue to endorse the policy as currently practiced. Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, for instance, said on October 13, 1999, that ''China will continue to enforce its effective family planning policy in the new century in order to create a favorable environment for further development.'' (italics added.) And in its White Paper on Population, released on December 19, 200o, the PRC avows it will continue the one-child policy for another fifty years. The White Paper actually sets a population target of 1.6 billion people by the year 2050.
The Chinese government, as it has for the past two decades, sought to suggest that these targets and quotas will be achieved by ''education'' and ''persuasion.'' As an example of the effectiveness of ''education'' and ''persuasion,'' the White Paper offered the information that women were putting off their first child until age 23.6 by 1998, while in 1970 they gave birth at 20.8 years. But this is disingenuous. The age at first birth has climbed in the People's Republic of China not because of ''education'' and ''persuasion,'' but because women are forbidden to marry until 23, and aborted if they become pregnant out of wedlock.
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The Chinese government also maintains that local abuses—such as the abortion campaign recently ordered in the Guangdong county of Huaiji—as aberrations. But the Chinese program remains highly coercive not because of local deviations from central policies but as a direct, inevitable, and intentional consequence of those polices.
UNITED NATIONS POPULATION FUND INVOLVEMENT
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has supported the one-child policy in China from 1979. Currently, under a program begun in 1998, it operates family planning programs in 32 counties, or county-level municipalities, throughout China. The UNFPA claims that in the counties where it is active (1) reproductive health programs are ''fully voluntary,'' (2) ''women are free to voluntarily select the timing and spacing of their pregnancies,'' (3) targets and quotas have been lifted, (4) in keeping with the principles of the 1994 Cairo Program of Action, abortion is not promoted as a method of family planning and (4) that coercion does not exist.
I have always held the opinion that, given the character of China's family planning program, and its human rights situation in general, that it was highly unlikely that the UNFPA's claims about its current program are accurate.
We now have documentation, from on the ground in China, that its claims are completely false. I leave it to the following witness to lay out the details of the coercion, forced abortions, and forced sterilizations which she has documented in a region of China which the UNFPA has claimed is free of such abuses.
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It is my recommendation to the Congress that, because of the UNFPA's continued involvement in China's coercive one-child policy, and no less because of its sheer duplicity about this involvement, no U.S. funds should be appropriated for its support.
Population Research Institute receives no funding from the Federal government.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Mosher, thank you very much. You raised a number of questions, but that is one in particular that we will definitely follow up on as well as others. Mr. Wu?
STATEMENT OF HARRY WU, DIRECTOR, LAOGAI RESEARCH FOUNDATION
Mr. Wu. Mr. Chairman, I am honored to testify here again on the planned birth policy in the People's Republic of China. In 1998, I testified alongside other crucial witnesses on this issue before this very Committee. Unfortunately, the planned birth control is still carried out as the national policy in China, and the consequent violations of basic human rights are perpetrated no less frequently.
This population policy that began in the 1980's is a policy under the absolute control of the Communist government, a policy that grossly violates human nature as well as human rights, and based exclusively on political considerations, it is a barbaric action.
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The Chinese government argues in support of its population policy, saying that China has limited living and land resources. To become prosperous, China must curb its population growth. They claim that limited living and land resources as a result of overpopulation lead to poor education, environmental problems, poor medical care, and a low quality of life for the people.
To summarize, the Chinese government wishes that people around the world, particularly the Chinese people, could agree that overpopulation is one of the major reasons why China remains poor and corrupt. But such an argument is preposterous and entirely unacceptable. Japan, which has far more people per capita than China, is, in fact, a developed nation, well educated, stable, and tackling population control through better education rather than brutal control.
Actually, China's Communist political and economic system is the main reason why it can barely develop, which in turn causes an exploding population and stagnant economy. The only way to solve the Chinese population problem is not to strengthen Communism's political powers, but to drastically change its irrational political and economic systems.
To give birth is a basic human right. No government, organization, or individual should, based on political, economic, cultural, religious, and racial reasons, deprive a human being's right to give birth. To give birth is also an act of nature, and try as we might, we cannot always control a human being's reproductive system. To violently punish a woman and her unborn child for natural consequences often beyond their control is a kind of cruelty. And to hold so much power in the hands of a central totalitarian regime invites far too many human rights abuses to terrify the people.
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In 1998, I testified on this issue of how the policy was implemented in Fujian Province. Today, I testify on new research in Tianjin Municipality and in regions of national minorities.
Tianjin is one of the four municipalities directly under the central government, the other three being Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing. With its better economic and cultural conditions, one would expect the implementation of planned birth control policy to be relatively more civilized than in the other regions.
Here is the document. We obtained it. Most of it is an internal document, the so-called Tianjin Municipality Regulations of Planned Birth Policy. According to this document, Tianjin carries out a system that holds the CEOs of the work units accountable for population quotas during their time period. In other words, the responsibility of the CEOs for population quotas is fixed by their government superiors.
CEOs at all levels are duty bound, authorized, and determined to make it impossible for population growth to surpass fixed quotas during their time period. If they fail to do so, they will lose their promotions and lose their job and also face punishment. This is the principal reason why Communist cadres at all levels resort to desperate, barbaric practices of forcing artificial abortion and sterilizations and killing infants. Such a practice relates directly to the security of their jobs.
For instance, superior units allow Xinanliuxing village of the Dongpuwa Township in Tianjin, which has a population of 500, a quota of only 2 1/2 children annually, or 5 children every 2 years. Should more than 5 children be born, the punishment befalls to the village party branch secretary and planned birth director. So after every woman, when they have their first baby—this is the IUD. Okay. And they are forced to be put into every individual woman, and every quarter the woman has to go to the local police, local hospital to make a test to see that the IUD is still in the woman. If a woman is pregnant, she must undergo an abortion. No doubt.
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And now we can see another attachment which I present to you. This is the patient's record from a very well-known hospital in Tianjin. The hospital has two names. One is the Tianjin Central Women's Hospital and also is the name ''Baby Friendly Hospital'' in Tianjin. It is kind of nominated by the government health minister and also supported by the United Nations Children's Fund and the World Health Organization.
This woman was pregnant almost 6 months and forced to abort this fetus. And this fetus was smuggled out of China, and I received it in San Francisco. But I had to right away turn it into the Customs Service because this violated Federal law. And you can read the record how the doctor in this hospital aborted the infant, how they did it.
And now to present you another case. It is a minority. I am very happy today to have a Uyghur woman today here. According to Chinese planned birth policy, it is said an allowed minority can have more children than the Han nationalities. It is somewhat different. This is not true.
This is the couple. The man is Wewu, and the woman is Uzbek. The Uzbek minority in China, the total population is only less than 10,000. Supposedly, according to Chinese regulation, he is free to have however many children he wants, but that actually is not true. And you can read the statement. When he had the second baby, it was aborted, and the doctor in the hospital tried to capture the fetus because the fetus can be a kind of Chinese medicine to make money, and her husband rushed into the hospital and fought against and got the fetus back. According to their religion, the unborn baby has to be buried in their cemetery.
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Now, here is a problem. We recently received information from the Chinese, reliable information, that when the Chinese government implemented the birth control policy 20 years, they very proudly say, well, the Chinese population is 330 million less than had been predicted. Here is my question. Three hundred thirty million, and they were desired children. Through what kind of measurement forced abortion? Okay. Let us see. If one-third of them is forcibly aborted, that is 110 million murdered, killed. And this is a planned, premeditated murder and abuse of both women and children.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Wu, if I may interrupt for just 1 second, there are 3 minutes left for another vote, and it is back-to-back two votes. We will immediately reconvene, and without objection your additional information that you have just referred to will be made a part of the record. And I apologize to you and to the other witnesses for this interruption. We will resume momentarily.
Mr. Wu. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:55 a.m., a brief recess was taken.]
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. The hearing will resume its sitting, and I just would announce, again, for the benefit of our witnesses especially that there is a briefing going on right now on this anthrax scare, and the House will soon be closing. So that is why many of the Members are making a beeline to that briefings. It is a security briefing. So I can assure you we will get your testimony out not only to every Member of this Committee, but also to other Members in the House and the Senate because I think what you have witnessed to the Committee today needs the widest possible dissemination because it is shocking. The truth sometimes is shocking, and certainly what you are telling us is shocking. Mr. Wu, if you would proceed, please.
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Mr. Wu. Congressman Lantos spoke that not one cent of taxpayer money goes to support the Chinese policy. And this may be true. However, what about our enterprises in China? According to Chinese regulations, every foreign investment in China that have offered a number of the money. For example, in Fujian Province, it is 0.7 percentage of the annual employee's salary. They have to give the money to the Chinese authority for employee's health insurance. But if you violate so-called Chinese birth control policy, you get nothing, and you will be fired.
A couple of years ago, I had a conversation with the former CEO from Eastman Kodak because Eastman Kodak is very well known in the United States because they have a very good welfare policy for their employees. And I said, well, you supposedly treat your female employees very well, and American employees can get pregnant and give birth and enjoy all of the benefits how many times. It does not matter. But do you know your Chinese employees in China, they are saying they make the contribution to your enterprises, your company? But if they have a second pregnancy, they are subject to forced abortion. And if they violate the Chinese policy, they will be fired. And this former CEO said, I did not know. Yes, because they cooperate with the Chinese government, the Chinese authorities take care of this health policy. But actually our money is involved in this policy. I think the Congress has to put this on the agenda, warning our enterprises in China that they also violate human rights and violate our principles. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wu follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF HARRY WU, DIRECTOR, LAOGAI RESEARCH FOUNDATION
I am honored to testify here again on the Planned Birth Policy in the People's Republic of China.
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In 1998, I testified alongside other crucial witnesses on this same issue before this very committee. Unfortunately, the Planned Birth Policy is still carried out as the national policy of the People's Republic of China, and consequent violations of basic human rights are perpetrated no less frequently.
It is regrettable that in addressing human rights issues, the United States government fails to accuse the Planned Birth Policy of the People's Republic of China—a policy of gross human rights violations—from a proper standpoint. Primarily focusing on persecution cases of prominent dissidents, our government often overlooks China's systemic violations of basic human rights, violations that effect each and every citizen: the intellectuals and workers, urbanites and peasants, Han Chinese and minorities, the men, women and children of China. Those overlooked include the massive Laogai (''reform through labor'') system, the Planned Birth Policy, the horrible practice of mass and public execution, the harvesting of executed prisoners' organs, and the all-around ruthless persecution of religious believers.
To become a peaceful, prosperous, democratic and free nation, China must significantly improve human rights conditions from the most basic and universal aspects. Otherwise, more skyscrapers and high-rises, more manufacturers, and more technology will only transfuse more blood to extend the existence of this regime.
The population policy that began in the 1980's is a policy under the absolute control of the Chinese Communist Party, a policy that grossly violates human nature as well as human rights. Based exclusively on political considerations, it is a barbaric action.
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China argues in support of its population policy, saying that China has limited living and land resources. To become prosperous, China must curb its population growth. They claim that limited living and land resources as a result of overpopulation lead to poor education, environmental hazards, poor medical care, and a low quality of life for the population. To summarize, the Chinese government wishes that people around the world, particularly the Chinese people, could agree that overpopulation is one of the major reasons why China remains poor and corrupt. But, such an argument is preposterous and entirely unacceptable. One only needs to glance a few inches on a globe to see why: Japan, which has far more people per capita than China, is in fact a developed nation, well-educated, stable, and tackling population control through better education rather than brutal control.
In actuality, China's Communist political and economic system is the main reason why it can barely develop, which in turn causes an exploding population and stagnant economy. The only way to solve China's population problem is not to strengthen Communism's political powers, but to drastically change its irrational political and economic system.
To give birth is a basic human right. No government, organization, or individual should, based on political, economic, cultural, religious and racial reasons, deprive a human being's right to give birth. To give birth is also an act of nature, and try as we might, we cannot always control a human being's reproductive system. To violently punish a woman and her unborn child for natural consequences often beyond their control is the epitome of cruelty. And, to hold such power in the hands of a central totalitarian regime invites far too many human rights abuses to terrify the masses.
It is my hope that all of you who are here, all American statesmen, scholars, religious workers and grassroots citizens, will agree that such a personal, yet universal issue of one's right to procreate deserves a standard that cannot be overlooked by China.
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In 1998, I testified on how the Planned Birth Policy was implemented in the Fujian Province. Today I testify on new research in Tianjin Municipality and in regions of national minorities.
Tianjin, with its population of ten million, is one of China's four municipalities directly under the central government, the other three being Bejing, Shanghai, and Chongqing. With its better economic and cultural conditions, one would expect the implementation of its Planned Birth Policy to be relatively more ''civilized'' than in other regions.
The following is a description of our investigation:
1. According to Article Four of Tianjin Municipality Regulations of Planned Birth (Attachment I) which was promulgated on April 15, 1994 by the Seventh Plenary Session, Twelfth People's Congress Standing Committee of Tianjin Municipality, Tianjin carries out a system that holds the CEOs of work units accountable for population quotas during their tenure. In other words, the responsibility of CEOs for population quotas is fixed by their governmental superiors. CEOs at all levels are duty-bound, authorized, and determined to make it impossible for population growth to surpass fixed quotas during their tenure. If they fail to do so, they will lose their promotions and risk dismissal or punishment. This is the principle reason why Communist cadres at all levels resort to desperate, barbaric practices of forcing artificial abortion and sterilization, and killing infants. Such a practice relates directly to the security of their jobs.
For instance, superior units allow Xinanliuxing Village of the Dongpuwa Township in Wuqing County, Tianjin, which has a population of 500, a quota of only 2.5 children annually, or, 5 children every two years. (Attachment II) Should more than five children be born, the punishment befalls the village party branch secretary and planned birth director. Subsequently, they sterilize all women with two children in the village. All women with one child are forced to undergo device-insertion surgery. The device reliability and pregnancy are checked every three months. If a woman is pregnant, she must undergo an abortion. The report lists two cases of this.
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The attachment also lists an incident that happened in the Aiying (''Baby-Friendly'') Hospital in Tianjin, a facility affiliated with the Tianjin Central Women's Hospital. WANG Gulian, a woman with one child who became pregnant again at the age of 25, was to undergo artificial abortion for causing ''overbirth'' (over-quota birth or out-of-plan birth). Her case history states: ''05/13/97, 10:30 AM, patient emptied bladder. Induced delivery. Needle inserted two fingers beneath navel. Needle extracted. Clear amniotic fluid. 100 ml of Rufenol (a drug to kill the fetus) injected. Patient experienced no discomfort. 05/14/97, 7:00 AM. Irregular lump dropped out. No fluid from vagina. No blood. 05/15/97, 6:30 AM. Since yesterday, experiencing regular uterine contraction. At 10 PM last night, amniotic fluid broke out. At 6 AM this morning, dead infant delivered. Good contraction. Placenta dropped out . . .''
This hospital, which receives funds from the United Nations Children Foundation, performs around 300 forced abortion surgeries and 100–150 sterilization surgeries monthly.
2. According to Article Two of Tianjin Municipality Regulations of Planned Birth, out-of-plan births and out-of-wedlock births are prohibited; birth can only be granted to children within the plan. As Tianjin Planned Birth Committee explains, ''Prohibiting out-of-plan births means prohibiting non-approved second or third births''; ''out-of-wedlock births means unmarried people giving birth,'' and this is considered to be illegal; ''population growth must correspond to plan'' means that the superior government units stipulate subordinate units' birth plans, which must in no case be ''overfilled.''
Such a population control policy, with the government stipulating birth figures, has been unprecedented in world history. The figures have legal binding force and are executed by CEOs authorized by the government to implement their quotas.
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An investigation report shows that the Planned Birth Policy of the People's Republic of China allows national minorities to be treated somewhat differently. But, to learn the truth of that, one needs only to read the statement of Uzbek minority Mahire Omerjan. Mahire, a young woman with one son, was held down against her will despite legislation allowing minorities two or three children while nurses forcibly pushed her healthy, unborn child out of her womb. (Attachment III)
According to a recent report issued by the Chinese authorities, as the result of implementing the Planned Birth Policy over the last twenty years, the Chinese population is 330 million less than had been predicted. Beijing boasts this as the great victory of its Planned Birth Policy, and indeed, that is a significant figure in population control. But we, as fellow human beings, are required to ask how many of those 330 million were desired children, annihilated through forced abortion? If we assume the proportion to be one third, then that means 110 million lives destroyed and 110 million mothers the victims of violent law enforcement. If we assume the proportion to be merely one tenth, we see 33 million families disrupted for the sake of officials' good favor with an unstable, totalitarian regime. This is planned and pre-meditated murder and abuse of both women and children.
Violent consequences aside, it is important to note that if Chinese authorities continue to implement this Planned Birth Policy, the Chinese population will be horribly unbalanced. In a small village in the Guanxi province, 19 out of 24 births during the year 2001 were boys. China's population of 1.2 billion people has 41 million more men than women. The Chinese generally prefer their only child to be male, particularly in the countryside where boys are of more help to the family. Therefore, female infants are often killed or left at orphanages. If this continues, the proportion of males will quickly tower over the proportion of females, leading to a vaster network of women trafficking as men scramble to find wives. Upcoming generations will have no concept of siblings, cousins, uncles and aunts. China will be an abnormal, hapless nation.
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I stand before you today to condemn the nature and implementation of China's Planned Birth Policy. I wholeheartedly agree that something must be done to control China's population problem. However, what I have described today is a brutal method that, in time, will only further sour the relationship between the government and the masses and lead to problems of a far more serious nature. I therefore urge the Chinese authorities to seek out and consider alternative methods of population control, to research more successful and less violent method implemented by other nations. And I urge the American government to assist them as best they can.
ATTACHMENT II
Tianjin Investigation Report, Part One
To grasp the reality of the Planned Birth Policy, we visited Xiqing (formerly Xijiao) District, Tianjin, in the Dongtaizi and Xiaojinzhuang Villages of the Wangwenzhuang Township. Through a friend, we were able to talk with cadres in charge of planned birth who told us how the policy is implemented.
The first planned birth cadre with whom we spoke was ZHOU Guilan, a 52-year-old female, who had been a peasant. From 1974 through 1996, Zhou spent over twenty years working the planned birth office until she retired because of her age. Our friend, who knew Zhou well, told her that we were writing a thesis on population and wanted to consult her on the implementation of Planned Birth policies in rural areas. She spoke frankly and gave us highly reliable information. We therefore wrote this report under our real names.
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According to Zhou, 1983 was an important year in planned birth, with new methods replacing old ones. This was confirmed by the second woman we spoke to, TIAN, the vice head of Xiaojinzhuang Village. We spoke with them separately, but what they told us was the same.
In 1983, their superiors, commune-level cadres, sent a Bazhou City physician to them who had already performed sterilization surgeries on thousands of women of child-bearing age who already had two children. The surgeries were said to be ''voluntary,'' when in actuality, no targeted woman could refuse the surgery. The targeted women in the township were brought to the physician by village and township cadres.
The physician performed the surgeries quickly, spending no more than ten minutes on each sterilized woman. A total of 89 targeted women underwent sterilization.
We asked if there had been surgical accidents. She said one malpractice accident happened to a Xiaojinzhuang woman. Asked how the situation was handled, she said township took care of the woman's health care and subsidiaries. She did not disclose the amount, but added that the woman died in 1997.
Asked about key points in planned birth work, she said that the most important factor is not to overstep ''quotas''—the number of permissive births. Superiors grant the birth quotas to grassroots leaders, who in turn report all births. Each district has its planned birth office, townships have their own planned birth agencies, and villages each have a team of planned birth workers. A village Communist Party secretary and the village head take charge of a township's Planned birth Policy, but the workers carry out the actual deeds.
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A newly-married couple is given one quota, or permission to bear one child. Upon the birth of their first child, endless ''precautions'' begin to prevent a second birth. If their first child is female, they may have a second child with permission from authorities. This is called ''rational second birth.'' Unconditional sterilization follows to rule out further births.
It goes without saying that certain methods of enactment are indispensable to the policy. Zhou told us that in each of the four villages within the township—Xiaohanzhuang, Xiaonianzhuang, Xiaojinzhuang and Xilanzhai—homes that housed families with more than one child had been razed to the ground by bulldozers. Village Planned Birth officials brought all child-bearing-age women to the homes to bear witness to the destruction. This method, known as ''killing the chicken to scare the monkey'' is popular in maintaining Communist power and is akin to practices of public executions and public sentencing rallies. The second cadre we spoke with confirmed the method of destroying homes.
In Dongtaizi Village, a second birth took place and the family received a monetary penalty of 147,000 RMB, a sum they were unable to pay. Village cadres pitied them and lessened the penalty to 30,000 RMB under the condition that should another family follow their example, the full amount would befall the entire village. When a family produces an ''over-birth,'' the entire village is often penalized with heavy fines.
Asked if illegally born children receive ''residence quotas'', documents that prove their legitimacy and ultimately important in one's search for education and employment, Tian replied, ''Of course not.''
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When a woman receives a second-birth permit, she must pledge to be sterilized immediately following the second birth. If she refuses to do so, police and courts have the right to become involved, resulting in possible monetary fines and property confiscation among other punishments.
A fee of 5,550 RMB obtains a second-birth permit. With 550 RMB paid for sterilization, 5,000 RMB is refunded once sterilization is complete. If the mother refuses sterilization, 5,000 RMB is held as a penalty and forced sterilization ensues.
Urine tests and ultrasounds must be completed every three months on each fertile woman. If a woman tests positive for pregnancy, she immediately undergoes an abortion. Once, in Xiaosunzhuang, a woman managed to evade the routine exams. When officials caught up to her, she was over 8 months pregnant. Officials aborted her fetus.
The development of planned birth work is difficult to study in rural areas. Both Zhou and Tian, however, agreed that since the 1990's it has been easier for them to handle their work. It seems that people have become ''enlightened'' and have lost some hostility to population-control workers. They said that women are beginning to see the benefits of having less children, and some even returned their second-birth quotas. Many others with whom we spoke agreed: it seems that Chinese women are indeed willing to have less children.
Tianjin Investigation, Part II
On July 17, 1998, I visited Xinanliuxing Villiage in Wuqing County of Tianjin Municipality. JIN Yao's aunt, age 56, was the Communist Party secretary. I told her that I was assigned by my unit to carry on a social investigation on the topic of planned birth. She was in charge of planned birth work, and had as a subordinate an illiterate woman to carry out the policies.
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Our talk progressed smoothly. What she said was fully trustworthy.
The small mountain village has a population of 500. At present, there is no population growth in the village. The village had a quota of 2.5 children annually, or 5 children in two years. In that year, the village elementary school did not have enough students to form a class.
As she recalled, the superior township government started the planned birth work in 1975. The goal at that time was: one couple, two children. They discouraged families having three children.
In 1983, all women who had just given birth to their second child were sterilized. Those who resisted were taken to the township and locked up for several days. Village women, fearing government actions, agreed to the surgery, and only then could they return home.
In the Planned Birth Policy, a village may be stipulated a monetary penalty of 200,000 RMB for each case of over-birth. The first 20,000 RMB is due as soon as the child is born, followed by yearly fines of 10,000 RMB for the next 18 years.
Village cadres suffer punishment if they overlook a case of over-birth. Planned birth work carries on under tight supervision by superior units.
A woman undergoes device-insertion surgery as soon as she gives birth to her first child. Every three months, workers from the township test her urine. Once, a woman whose urine tests were not performed, was sent to undergo an abortion when she was eight months pregnant. Usually, a shot is given to the infant in the womb to induce a still-born birth. In this case, the shot mistakenly entered the amniotic fluid and the child emerged alive and healthy. The child's grandmother bravely forced her way into the office, yelling, ''This child is legal. You gave a faulty shot. Don't you dare touch him!'' As a result, the child survived and the family escaped monetary penalties.
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Another woman in her eighth month of pregnancy was sent to the hospital for an abortion. When physicians left the hospital in the evening, they locked the iron gate in the hallway. The woman crept through an opening above the gate and escaped. She had barely reached the bus station when she gave birth to her child. The child escaped death, but the woman's grain ration was reduced and she paid heavy fines.
No house was dismantled in this village. Women of child-bearing age whose first born is a girl and qualify for a second child may do so when they turn 35. When a husband or wife is impaired, a second birth is approved 4 years after the first birth. Women approved to have a second birth must pay 3,000 RMB and pledge to undergo sterilization immediately following. Once sterilization is complete, the 3,000 RMB is refunded to them.
Investigation written by Laogai Research Foundation associates within China in October 1999.
ATTACHMENT III
Mahire Omerjan's Statement
My name is Mahire Omerjan, female. I was born on May 5th, 1960, in Urumqi City, Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region, China. In July 1978 I graduated from Experimental High School, Senior Section, Urumqi City, and started working as a substitute teacher at #47 Elementary School, Urumqi City. In November 1980, I was hired by Tien Shan Woolen Mill in Xinjiang. My nationality is Uzbek, a very small nationality of 9,000 people living mainly in Urumqi, Ghutja, Kashgar, Guqung and other places. On October 13th, 1985, I married Adil Atawutta, a Uigur man. Our family has always been a happy one. In April 1996, he came to the United States. He is a graduate student of computer science at Northwestern Polytechnic University. Before that he had taught experimental physics at Xinjiang Normal University.
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In November, 1988, I gave birth to our first child. He is twelve now. In January, 1990, I was pregnant with our second child, and misfortunes befell me. Those at our company who were in charge of our planned birth knew I was pregnant. They said they would think about how to handle ''my problem.'' A few months later, they said, ''You can't have this child. It's not in keeping with the spirit of related documents.'' I asked them what ''documents' spirit'' it was not in keeping with, and they replied, ''You're child is not yet three. You must wait until he is three, and then you can have a second child.'' They also said I would have to go through an abortion. Some time passed, and the people at our company in charge of planned birth talked to me again. They said they would not allow me to have a second child and urged me to have an abortion. Then I explained to them, ''I'm a minority. According to your National Minorities Policy, I am allowed to have two children. Besides, I'm five months pregnant. We have our religious faith. By our religion, abortion is not permitted. It's a crime.'' But they said, ''We don't care about your religion. Such is the Party's planned birth policy. We will not permit you to have this child.'' I said, '' I'm a mother. To give birth to children is the right Allah gives me. It's the continuation of life. I must give birth to this child.''
Many times I spoke with my bosses, requesting permission to have the child. My husband also wrote letters to my unit requesting that they give me a chance. At the same time, he went to the Autonomous Region's Urumqi City Planned Birth Office, requesting that they give me a ''birth quota.'' But, all our endeavors turned out to be futile. During the whole process more than one month passed. Finally, my unit decided to take me by force to the hospital for an abortion. I was then six and a half months pregnant. My husband had appealed to all possible units and people, including bosses in our respective units, requesting that they permit an innocent life to be born into this world. But, all of them rejected his pleas. They said, ''If you don't do what we want, we'll suspend your wages, cancel your bonuses, levy a 2,500 RMB penalty on you, suspend all benefits you are enjoying now. And your child will never have a residence permit. He'll be a nobody.'' This actually meant I would lose my job. They tried to dissuade me in such ignominious ways, economically and administratively. We thought about this and decided, whatever they resort to, we must keep our child.
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Nevertheless, reality was too cruel. In Xinjiang, the Communist Party exercises not only dictatorial rule, but rampant racial discrimination. The Communists periodically carry out ''red terror.'' I am a woman of the Uzbek national minority with a population of only thousands. But, they wanted me to have an abortion. Xinjiang, or Eastern Turkestan, is the land where we have lived for generations upon generations. On this land, we do not enjoy even minimal rights. They even decide how and when we can give birth to children. They do whatever they want. If I had lost my job at that time, I would have no chance to find another. My husband's monthly salary was 380 RMB ($45). We lived a very simple life. We did not have thousands of dollars to pay to them. We had to survive. We had to breed our first child.
I must mention that according to China's National Minorities Policy in Xinjiang and Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region's planned birth documents, families of Uigur, Kazak, and other national minorities living in urban areas are allowed to have two children, while families of such national minorities like Uzbek and Tatar, with a population of under 10,000 living in urban areas, are allowed to have three children. Nevertheless, different units, while actually implementing the ''policy'' or ''spirit of documents'' may act in their own ways or simply refuse to implement the national minority rights.
At that time, my work unit, trying its best to be evaluated as one of the advanced enterprises in the nation, ''excellent in ten aspects'' (one of the aspects being planned birth), completely disregarded the ''policy'' and ''documents.'' To be exact, certain Communist Party officials, striving for personal gains and an ''untarnished reputation'' as leaders of ''advanced units,'' disregard people's lives and reduce themselves to cannibalism. They do everything in their power to attain their goal, economically and administratively. How the Communist Party's National Minorities Policy sounds in words is one thing; how it is implemented is quite another. As a matter of fact, there really is no law in China.
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On July 15th, 1990, at 2:00 PM, my work unit sent a Nissan van to my home. BAI Li of my unit's planned birth office, YING Fengying, the trade union chairperson, and XU Jun, a trade union staff member, came to my home. They escorted me to #1 Hospital attached to the Xinjiang Medical School for ''impulsive artificial abortion surgery.'' I was in tears. The next morning, at 10:00 AM, a health checkup was done. One of the physicians who checked me said, ''Your child is very healthy and big.'' After the check-up, I was administered a kind of drug. About an hour later, I was sent to the obstetrician surgical room. My husband was kept outside. I was put on an operating table. Two nurses were standing on either side of me. An obstetrician was about to give me a shot. I saw the needle was thick, about 10 centimeters long, and asked the obstetrician on which part of my body she would administer the shot. She told me it would go through my abdomen. Terrified, I thought the shot was going directly into my child's body, because my child was struggling fiercely in my abdomen. At that moment, I panicked and thought I must keep my child at any cost. I told the obstetrician, ''Doctor, don't give me the shot. I want to go home. I want my child!'' I started calling for my husband. But the two nurses started pressing my arms with all their might. One of the nurses said ferociously, ''Who told you to get pregnant! Who told you not to act according to the planned birth policy!'' I was struggling and crying. But still, the needle went into the right side of my abdomen. About two hours later my abdomen began aching and I was perspiring all over. My stomach ached so badly, as though it would break. Some time later, in agony, I found my child was no longer struggling. That was the most painful moment in my life. I hated the ''medical personnel'' bitterly. They tarnished the most noble and humanitarian profession in the world. It was they who murdered an innocent life in his mother's abdomen. Could there be anything more tragic in the world? But there was nothing I could do about it. I was crying. I hated myself. I felt sorry for my elder child, because his brother was murdered by those monsters. Oh, Allah, you saw everything with your own eyes! Crying, I implored the obstetrician to allow my husband to stand by my side, but she refused. Some time passed. I lost consciousness. When I came to, my abdomen was aching badly. The two nurses were forcefully pressing my abdomen, slowly pushing my child downward. They wanted me to breathe heavily. I was weak all over. I almost lost consciousness. More time passed. I saw them slowly pushing my child outward. The two nurses were fighting for the placenta, saying it could be made into a kind of medicine. Crying, I asked them to show me the child. One of the nurses, taking my child by his legs, showed him to me for a short moment. Struggling, I wanted to hug my child, but was weak all over. I saw it was a boy, very big . . . Then, I fainted. When I awoke, I was in a ward of twelve patients and was having an intravenous glucose drip. My husband was standing by their side. I hugged him and cried bitterly. Only later did I know that the two nurses only took me to the obstetrician surgical room's door in a wheelchair. It was my husband who carried me to the ward.
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The whole thing was a true nightmare. It is too terrible, too tragic. But it really happened! We lost our child. Helplessly, we watched them murder our child, who was six and a half months and was going to be born into this world in just two months. Two hours later, my husband went to the obstetrician surgical room to see our child. But, they had already sent the child to be frozen in a big refrigerator. According to Islamic ritual, my husband took our child to the mosque, where he groomed our child's ace. He saw the child had bluish birthmarks above his right ear and on one side of his head. Finally, he wrapped the child in gauze and, after religious rituals, buried him in a Muslim cemetery on Yan'an Road, Urumqi. For seven years, we have visited him several times each year. We can only hope that the innocent life can live happily in paradise.
Mahire Omerjan
Interview conducted in August 2000 by the Laogai Research Foundation.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Wu, thank you very much for your testimony. I would like to invite Ms. Fatkulin to testify.
STATEMENT OF YEMLIBIKE FATKULIN, ASYLUM SEEKER FROM EAST TURKESTAN
Ms. FATKULIN. Dear Chairman, Members of Congress, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to thank you for giving me this precious opportunity to testify before you. My name is Yemlibike Fatkulin. I am an asylee in the United States. I came to the U.S. 2 years ago. Now I would like to testify on coercive Chinese birth control policies imposed on the Uyghur people since 1984.
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To restrain and control the natural growth of the Uyghur population, the Chinese government has carried out coercive birth control and forced-sterilization policies on the Uyghurs in East Turkestan. Since then, under the pretext of ''ensuring a steady growth in minority population,'' ''improving the quality of minorities,'' and ''eliminating economic inequalities,'' the Chinese government launched a series of extensive birth control and forced-sterilization campaigns all over East Turkestan, targeting the Uyghur women.
In the summer of 1986, my cousin, Eneytulla Habibil's wife, Mangnehan, was about to have twins at Turpan Yar Village five-star hospital. However, the twins were immediately aborted after hospital officials learned that they already had a child. At that time my cousin was in prison, serving his 2-year sentence for religious activities.
Officially, the one-child policy only applies to the nationalities over 10 million population in China. East Turkestan, which is also called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region by China, with a Uyghur population around eight million, is regarded as a ''minority nationality'' and is in theory not subject to the provisions of family planning legislation in China. However, in practice, the birth control and sterilization policies have been actively promoted and encouraged by the Chinese government in the Uyghur towns and villages of East Turkestan, especially in rural areas.
Most of my relatives live in Turpan, an oasis town near Urumchi. My cousin, Tursunay, who is Eneytulla's sister, was sentenced to prison for 2 years in 1995. All she did was wearing religious veils and devoted her study to religion. She was forcibly sterilized in a prison at Turpan. Now she is out of prison. However, she could never have a child in her lifetime.
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The Chinese government has set up a large number of family planning work force and birth control clinics in all the hospitals of East Turkestan. Every year, in order to speed up the implementation of birth control and sterilization policies toward the indigenous Uyghurs, mobile family planning teams are sent out to countryside areas for conducting mass abortion and sterilization. Those Uyghur women who refuse to conduct abortions are forcibly operated upon.
Chinese birth control policies and regulations imposed on the Uyghurs affect both Uyghur women and children. My relative, Kerimhan's, three babies were all aborted by Chinese doctors in Turpan Yar village five-star hospital. As a result of forced abortion, she developed a severe bleeding problem until this very day.
Besides the complex rules controlling how many children Uyghurs can have legitimately, there is also a series of fines and punishments for Uyghur couples who break the rules and have an unauthorized child.
My stepsister, Arzigul Ablet, was fined heavily after she had her first baby born before the designated time of birth by the Chinese government. Chinese family planning officials told Arzigul that she had to have her baby in early 1997. Since Arzigul bore the child in December 1996, she was fined for 3,000 yuan, which was her 6-month salary.
Under these rules the Uyghur children who are born without state authorization can be denied residency, food, health care, and even schooling. Even though the Uyghurs who live in cities are allowed to have three, but most of the time they are denied to have more than one child with an excuse of having no extra quotas. The Chinese government, through social benefits and other further restrictions, usually discourages those who want to have more than one child.
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Every year the Chinese family planning officials claim that the birth control and sterilization plans among the Uyghurs in East Turkestan have been successfully implemented, and it has fulfilled the state requirements. According to some Uyghur family planning workers, in order to fulfill the quota of abortions, sometimes Chinese doctors are forced to kill the newborn Uyghur mothers and children every year.
My neighbor, Patam, who had three children in her first marriage, got married in 1993 with a Uyghur man who had two children. Together they wanted to have a child after they got married. However, she was forcibly operated upon, and her child was aborted in Urumchi Number 2 People's Hospital. She became paralyzed ever since her baby was aborted. She could not walk or stand up after this tragic event.
The current Uyghur population is less than 1 percent of China's total population. To restrict and control the natural growth of a population of this size in any country is to totally annihilate and genocide them. Therefore, the Chinese birth control policy of forced abortion and sterilization of Uyghurs is not a policy of ensuring the overall quality of Uyghur population. On the contrary, it is to gradually exterminate them by imposing all the political, economic, and social means and restrictions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Fatkulin follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF YEMLIBIKE FATKULIN, ASYLUM SEEKER FROM EAST TURKESTAN
Dear Chairman, Members of Congress, ladies and gentlemen,
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First of all, I would like to thank you for giving me this precious opportunity to testify before you. My name is Yemlibike Fatkulin. I am an asylee in the United States. I came to the US two years ago. Now I would like to testify on coercive Chinese birth control policies imposed on the Uyghur people since 1984.
To restrain and control the natural growth of the Uyghur population, the Chinese government has carried out a coercive birth control and forced sterilization policies on the Uyghurs in East Turkistan. Since then, under the pretext of ''ensuring a steady growth in minority population'', ''improving the quality of minorities'' and ''eliminating economic inequalities'', the Chinese government launched a series of extensive birth control and forced sterilization campaigns all over East Turkestan, targeting the Uyghur women.
In the summer of 1998, my cousin Eneytulla Habibil's wife Mangnehan was about to have twins at Turpan Yar village 5-star hospital. However, the twins were immediately aborted after hospital officials learned that they already had a child. At that time my cousin was in prison, serving his 2-year sentence for religious activities.
Officially, the one child policy on applies to the nationalities over 10 million population in China. East Turkestan (which is also called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region by China), with a Uyghur population around eight million, is regarded as a ''minority nationality'' and is in theory not subject to the provisions of family planning legislation in China. However, in practice, the birth control and sterilization policies have been actively promoted and encouraged by the Chinese government in the Uyghur towns and villages of Easter Turkestan, especially in rural areas.
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Most of my relatives live in Turpan, an oasis town near Urumchi. My cousin Tursunay, who is Eneytulla's sister, was sentenced to prison for two years in 1995. All she did was wearing religious veils and devoted her to study religion. She was forcibly sterilized in a prison at Turpan. Now she is out of prison. However, she could never have a child in her lifetime.
The Chinese government has set up a large number of family planning work force and birth control clinics in all the hospitals of East Turkestan. Every year, in order to speed up the implementation of birth control and sterilization policies toward the indigenous Uyghurs, mobile family planning teams are sent out to countryside areas for conducting mass abortion and sterilization. Those Uyghur women who refuse to conduct abortion are forcibly operated upon.
Chinese birth control policies and regulations imposed on the Uyghurs affect both Uyghur women and children. My relative Kerimhan's three babies were all aborted by Chinese doctors in Turpan Yar village 5-star hospital. As a result of forced abortion, she developed severe bleeding problem until this very day.
Besides the complex rules controlling how many children Uyghurs can have legitimately, there is also a series of fines and punishments for Uyghur couples who break the rules and have an unauthorized child.
My stepsister Arzigul Ablet was fined heavily after she had her first baby born before the designated time of birth by the Chinese government. Chinese family planning officials told Arzigul that she had to have her baby in early 1997. Since Arzigul born the child in December 1996, she was fined for 3,000 yuan, which was her six-month salary.
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Under these rules the Uyghur children who are born without state authorization can be denied residency, food, healthcare, and even schooling. Even though, the Uyghurs who live in the cities are allowed to have two children and the ones live in rural areas are allowed to have three but most of the times they are denied to have more than one child with an excuse of having no extra quotas. The Chinese government, through social benefits and other further restrictions, usually discourages those who want to have more than one child.
Every year, the Chinese family planning officials claim that the birth control and sterilization plans among the Uyghurs in East Turkestan have been successfully implemented, and it has fulfilled the state requirements. According to some Uyghur family planning workers, in order to fulfill the quota of abortions, sometimes Chinese doctors are forced to kill the newborn Uyghur babies. As a result, this birth control system has lead to the deaths of many Uyghur mothers and children every year.
My neighbor Patam who had three children in her first marriage got married in 1993 with a Uyghur man who had two children. Together they wanted to have a child after they got married. However, she was forcibly operated upon and her child was aborted in Urumchi #2 People's Hospital. She became paralyzed ever since her baby was aborted. She couldn't walk or stand up after this tragic event.
The current Uyghur population is less than one percent of China's total population. To restrict and control the natural growth of a population of this size in any country is to totally annihilate and genocide them. Therefore, the Chinese birth control policy of forced abortion and sterilization of Uyghurs is not a policy of ensuring the overall quality of Uyghur population. On the contrary, it is to gradually exterminate them by imposing all the political, economic and social means and restrictions.
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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Thank you very much for your testimony, and I would like to begin some questions right now, if I could. First, on June 10, 1998, at the hearing where Mrs. Gau testified, but I included for the record a letter from the UNFPA. It was signed by Nafa Sedic, Undersecretary General and the Executive Director for the UNFPA, and in answer to a series of questions that had been posed she made the following comments. And I would like so ask our panelists if they could respond as to whether or not in their view these responses comport with reality.
Will birth quotas remain in effect in these counties? That is to say the 32, and will women face sanctions if they become pregnant or bear a child outside of the quota? The Executive Director of the UNFPA said, and I quote,
''No birth quotas or targets will be applied in the counties participating in the project. Funds will be released only after the UNFPA field office has received official written commitment from the provincial authorities that quotas and targets have been removed in each of the participating counties. In the project counties couples will be allowed to have as many children as they want whenever they want without requiring birth permits or being subject to quotas. However, they may still be subject to a social compensation fee,''
whatever that is,
''if they decide to have more children than is recommended by the policy. The state family planning commission has indicated,''
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she goes on to say,
''that it is the government's intention to gradually eliminate incentives and disincentives from the family planning program.''
Is that a reality that you found in China in the 32 counties?
Ms. GUY. Mr. Chairman, if I may respond to that.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Please.
Ms. GUY. At random, we came upon a village and were able to interview a couple who was preparing a duck for the holidays. And at first they were reluctant to speak to us but then eventually agreed. What we found was actually a ''model'' village, which is the word that they used to describe their village. We noticed that this village was not like the other villages that we visited in that it was in a very nice area, almost a tourist-like area where you would come and spend some time in the country. They described their village as being a ''model village'' and that the family care official who was in charge of that village would receive incentives for keeping it a ''model village.'' And by ''model village'' we understood them to mean that they never go outside of the birth quotas that were put upon that village.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Would any of the others like to? Mr. Mosher? Is this a declarative sentence? ''No birth quotas or targets will be applied in the counties participating in the project.''
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Mr. MOSHER. Well, it is hard to say whether Ms. Sedic actually believed the information—disinformation—she was given by the Chinese government or whether she just passed it along to you. But there is no place in China, including the 32 counties, where couples are allowed to have as many children as they want. That particular Shangri-La does not exist within the borders of the People's Republic of China. And obviously there have been no documents produced by the UNFPA to prove that any provincial government ever in writing committed themselves to such conditions. If the UNFPA has such documents, I believe that they should be requested to produce them.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. An excellent point. Another question was posed. Will foreign observers, including NGOs and diplomatic personnel, have access to project counties and relevant county officials? This is Ms. Sedic's answer, and I quote:
''It has been agreed that the Chinese government and the project will follow all UNFPA procedures for monitoring and evaluation. In addition, the government has agreed that the project counties will be open to monitoring and evaluation visits by foreigners and that county officials will be available to talk to foreign delegations.''
Is that something that you think exists in those 32 counties, this kind of access, this kind of transparency?
Ms. GUY. That was not the impression that I got when I was there. We were not openly able to discuss our visit. We had to take pictures without them knowing that those pictures were being taken. We did inquire about the UNFPA worker in the office of the pictures that we have here with us today, and they were not willing to answer those questions.
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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Mr. Wu?
Mr. Wu. Can you ask the United Nations officials or NGOs that if they are studying Chinese planned birth control policy, have they ever read this kind of document? This is an internal document. This is a real, real document. If they do not have it, I do not think they really have the right or position to talk about forced planned birth policy in China because they did not know about it. This is the real policy from the central government to the bottom to the village to the county. And very detailed how to punish, how to fine, how to control, and what is your responsibility, and everything is right there. If they do not have this, I do not think they really understand this. Thank you.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I would just again note for the record that we invited the UNFPA to be here, and I certainly stand ready, as do other Members of the Committee, to receive them. Hopefully they, rather than just transmitting a letter, will see fit to come here and be accountable like any other organization, NGO, international organization, or individual. When sweeping statements are made, as they have been made by the UNFPA systematically throughout the years, about how voluntary this program is. These statements are contrary to mountains of evidence. It seems to me that there is a very heavy burden on the organization—which purports to believe in voluntarism—to give an account. And I am deeply disappointed that they chose not to be here.
Another question that was posed to them: What procedures will be in place to see that there are no coercive practices in the counties assisted by the UNFPA? Their answer, Ms. Sedic:
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''Frequent and rigorous monitoring visits and activities will be undertaken by the UNFPA and independent consultants as part of the work project plan, which includes, inter alia, surveying client satisfaction, surveying family planning service providers' skills, and qualitative and quantitative assessment of progress made under the project.''
Do you know if there is any evidence that they are so frequent and rigorous? Are monitoring visits being made and do they really care about client satisfaction? That seemed to be a strange word to be included in there.
Ms. GUY. We specifically asked the witnesses that we spoke to about UNFPA involvement in their county, and none of them had ever heard of UNFPA. They had never seen a UNFPA worker. They did not know about a UNFPA program. We understood that there was ongoing counseling by the UNFPA office in these counties to help these women with voluntary family planning. But UNFPA was just something that they had not heard of.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Let me just ask you a couple of questions. You mentioned, Ms. Guy, that the tables or the desks were literally so close and in such proximity they adjoin one another. Some years back, when there was this idea of plausible deniability on the part of the UNFPA, Judith Bannister undertook a study to try to see if there really was a separate entity or whether or not there was this merging of the two entities working side by side. The conclusion of that authoritative study by the U.S. Census Bureau—this was during the Reagan Administration—was that they were linked.
And you make that point again and that assertion today. Could you just describe for us, or Mr. Mosher or any of our witnesses, what does the Chinese government gain by having the UNFPA there?
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Ms. GUY. Mr. Mosher may speak to that, but my impression is, in just what I saw, is the legitimacy issue to have the appearance that voluntarism is going on at the minimum in these 32 counties. We did not find that to be the case.
Mr. MOSHER. I understand of the $20 million grant to fund programs in China, that $14 million was given directly to the Chinese government. So one wants to ask what the Chinese government gains? It gains a tidy sum of money to carry out the family planning policy that, according to all of the evidence, differs not one whit from the family planning policies carried out in China's 3,000 other counties.
If the UNFPA were making frequent and rigorous monitoring efforts, they would know of abuses. If they were doing surveys of client satisfaction, then people in those counties would know that the UNFPA had intervened and that it was responsible for some of the increasing voluntarism there. Nobody had heard of the UNFPA. There is no voluntarism.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Yes, Mr. Wu?
Mr. Wu. At this moment I am not talking about forced abortion and forced sterilization. We want to ask how the Chinese—help the people, help the women to prevent the pregnancies. Okay. They are using the IUD. And so far as I learned, this is illegal in the United States. According to medical research, this would hurt the woman. But this is a very, very functional measure in China after they give birth to insert IUD to every woman. Is the United Nations aware of that? Pass this to the officials of the United Nations. Do you agree with using these kind of things? And your money is actually supporting the murdering. Thank you.
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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Let me just ask a question with regards to the impact on women. Some years ago, I made three human rights trips to China. On one of those occasions, I met with Pong Payung, who headed up the program for a number of years. I found that in conversation there was an absolute sense of denial about anything. I mentioned a Washington Post three-part, incisive article by Michael Weiskoff, and it was just pure rubbish, pure lies, there was no reality or no truth in it, according to her.
On another trip, in meetings with family planning leaders in Beijing, I brought up Nicholas Christoff's 1993 article in which he speaks of a woman, and I will quote it just briefly.
''She should be taking her 2-month-old baby out around the village now, proudly nursing him and teaching him about life. Instead, her baby is buried under a mound of dirt, and Li spends her life lying in bed, emotionally crushed and physically crippled.''
The impact on the women is emotional and psychological. We all know that—especially after the trauma of September 11th—post-traumatic stress, emotional illness, and mental illness is something that very often goes undetected. But the amount of scaring from the forced abortion policy has to be of biblical proportions. What is your view, especially having interviewed some of these women, the anguish that they have experienced as a result of this policy?
Ms. GUY. If you look closely at the video that we showed, you will see an older woman who uses a cane and is limping in front of the camera for just a brief second. She is of the age to where she would not have been in her child-bearing years during the time that this policy was implemented. She was very aggressive and very eager to talk to us. She was very emotional about the impact that she saw on her daughter and the other women of the village regarding this policy that is in place in China.
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The one woman that we spoke to in one of the villages began to cry just telling us the story about the woman whose homes were destroyed. Are they going to be provided with a copy of the actual audio tape? You can hear them discussing—and I even asked why she kept covering her face because she began to have what I call nervous laughter. She was doing this in order for her to stop crying as she began to tell the story. Now, this was not her story but a story of a friend of whom this happened to.
And that was the common reaction that we got. It was sadness, unbelief almost, that they have to be forced to abide by these rules in their families. Even the men were willing to talk about it. Usually in America, it is not something that the men gather around to speak to—but the men even came and wanted to talk about how horrible it was for their families.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Let me ask you a question, though, Mr. Mosher. You mentioned the 50 year projection of the continuation of this policy, as if 2 decades of this nightmare were not enough. There is the issue of missing girls. Could you touch on that briefly, if you would? It would seem to be a demographic nightmare that so many girls have disappeared. The girl child has become an extinct and an endangered individual in the People's Republic of China.
And let me ask Ms. Fatkulin, if you would. Many of us have noticed that under the pretext of cracking down on terrorism, that the Uyghurs have come under heightened scrutiny by the Chinese dictatorship. Not only does that manifest itself in perhaps military moves against the Uyghurs, but the concern is that there will also be a corresponding further crackdown with regard to this harsh policy. So, Mr. Mosher?
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Mr. MOSHER. The chief victims of China's one-child policy have been little girls. They have been victimized because of the Chinese cultural preference for sons. Many Chinese are put in a position of choosing—of being allowed to have only one child. They want to ensure by any means possible, that that only child is a boy. That means that sex-selective abortion has become very common. Ultrasound machines are found even now in village clinics and are used to determine the sex of the unborn child. Little girl fetuses are aborted. Female infanticide, the killing of babies at birth, has become very common.
There are two types here. In government hospitals government doctors will kill unauthorized babies at birth by means of a poison shot to the head in the fontanel. And the second type, of course, is where parents decide themselves that if the baby born is a little girl, they do not allow her to live because they want to keep open the possibility of a son in the future. Thirdly, little girls are often abandoned. We know that tens of thousands of little girls are abandoned in China annually. The orphanages of China, the state-run orphanages and the few private ones, are full of little girls. The only boys you find are boys with a handicap, again, abandoned by their parents who are allowed only one child. They want to make sure that under the eugenics provision of the one-child policy—and it does have a strong eugenics component—that their child is superior.
So little boys and girls with handicaps, even minor handicaps that could be surgically corrected, are abandoned. But little girls are abandoned in large, large numbers into state-run orphanages where the mortality rates are very high. There is differential mortality among little girls as opposed to little boys. Girls do not get the kind of medical treatment, they do not get the kind of money spent on them for medical treatment that boys would receive. They are not treated as well, so they die at greater numbers.
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The result of that is a demographic trap for the Chinese people laid out by the Chinese government itself. The government admits that 21 million young men now coming of age will not be able to find brides. Where are their brides? Well, they were killed in utero, at birth, or in the years immediately after birth.
Mr. Wu. Congressman, I would just follow Mr. Mosher's comment. Today, American families adopt 50,000 babies from China, and probably 98 percent of them are baby girls. Why are there no baby boys? And the sex selection in China today is illegal. You cannot adopt a child if you already have one child. It is illegal. And the sex ratio between the male and female today is probably like 120-to-100. And government reliable information said in this 1.3 billion population that the male number has over passed the female numbers by 41 million. And I would make a joke that maybe in the future the Chinese children never know what is the meaning of brother, sister, uncle, aunt because all of them are single.
The other thing I want to show you is a photo from a village. It says: ''Consideration: More children, more crimes.'' So they create a fear to every single man and woman in this country. If you have more than one baby, it is a crime. It is guilt. That is the kind of philosophy and the psychological torture today that is everywhere in China. Thank you.
Ms. GUY. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Yes.
Ms. GUY. If I may add a little bit to that, I noticed that in every village that we visited there were billboard-sized letters painted on walls or on actual billboards that promoted the family planning policies, equating it to patriotism and protecting the economy of China. That was everywhere.
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Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Ms. Fatkulin, did you want to respond?
[No response.]
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. Would any of you like to add anything before we conclude, then?
[No response.]
Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I do want to thank you deeply for your testimony, for the courage of undertaking that undercover trip. We certainly have a number of questions to ask the UNFPA because you certainly have raised very, very disturbing issues. We hope to get some answer from the People's Republic of China, although it may not be satisfactory. But you have brought a tremendous amount of light to a very much concealed human rights abuse, one that many people would rather just go away and look askance.
So I want to thank you on behalf of the women and the men—which I know you so deeply care about—in China. And thank you also on behalf of the children for your courage and the professionalism that you bring to this. As I said, this hearing record and the information you have provided will be widely disseminated and will be used as we make policy. We need these insights that you have provided, and I want to say on behalf of Mr. Hyde and all of us, we are very grateful. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m. the Committee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
| United Nations Population |
| Fund (UNFPA), |
| New York, NY, October 16, 2001. |
Hon. HENRY J. HYDE, Chairman,
Committee on International Relations,
House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
DEAR CHAIRMAN HYDE: I am writing on behalf of Thoraya Obaid, the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in response to your invitation to testify before the House International Relations Committee, which she received late yesterday. I regret that Ms. Obaid's work with the Secretary-General to respond to the current humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan makes it impossible for her or any member of her senior staff with direct knowledge of UNFPA's current China program to testify in Washington on such short notice. Naturally, it also would be impossible to bring the appropriate UNFPA staff members from overseas to testify in time for the hearing.
UNFPA takes the allegations we understand may be raised at your hearing with great seriousness. UNFPA is sending an international team of members of its Executive Board to investigate allegations of abuse in Shiuan County. As you know, we have also offered to review any allegations with your staff, witnesses who will be appearing at the hearing, and representatives of the State Department who sit on the UNFPA Executive Board. We reiterate our continued willingness to meet with you and any witnesses so that we can review and address any allegations concerning UNFPA, and we will provide you with a briefing of the Executive Board investigation as soon as it becomes available.
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Although Ms. Obaid is not able to testify on the 17th, we can provide you with the following details about UNFPA and its activities in China that may be of use to you.
First and foremost, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has not, does not and will not ever condone coercive activities in China or anywhere else. UNFPA is committed to the realization of the UN's Charter and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and condemns coercion in all its forms. UNFPA funds in China, as elsewhere, can only be used in a manner consistent with the organization's objectives. Moreover, UNFPA does not support China's one-child policy, and is unequivocally opposed to targets and quotas.
UNFPA does not provide support for abortions or abortion-related activities anywhere in the world. It is the policy of the UNFPA not to provide assistance for abortions, abortion services, or abortion-related equipment and supplies as a method of family planning. Notably, UNFPA's policy, adopted by its Governing Council, clearly states that it is ''the policy of the Fund . . . not to provide assistance for abortion, abortion services, or abortion-related equipment and supplies as a method of family planning.'' In addition, UNFPA does not promote or provide support for involuntary sterilization or any coercive practices. The Fund is a global leader in working to eliminate the use of coercive family planning practices.
UNFPA takes allegations of coercion, forced abortion and violations of human rights seriously. They are in direct contradiction to UNFPA's goals and policies. UNFPA investigates all credible allegations of abuses that are brought to its attention by Member states, NGOs and private citizens. Moreover, the United States, as a member of the UNFPA Executive Board, has the right to monitor and visit the UNFPA program in China. It regularly does through its Embassy in Beijing. A U.S. congressional staff delegation visited the UNFPA China program in 1999. In 2000, members of UNFPA Executive Board made an official visit to the program and several members regularly monitor the program from their missions in Beijing as does the United States.
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UNFPA is currently supporting a Country Program in China as requested by the Government of China. The Program was approved by UNFPA's Executive Board, which as you know is comprised of 36 Member nations including the United States, in 1998. The purpose of the Program is to demonstrate the principles of the International Conference on Population and Development Program of Action, which requires voluntary choice in respect to determining when and whether to have children and expressly condemns any form of coercion
The focus of the UNFPA's Country Program in China is the provision of quality reproductive health services in 32 Chinese counties. These services include family planning, maternal health and the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. These services are provided with interpersonal counseling and informed consent. The Country Program also includes advocacy for gender equality, improving women's economic status, and punishment for any kind of violence against women.
In 2000, UNFPA spent $3.1 million in China to help the Chinese implement this new human rights-based approach to family planning. In contrast, the budget of the State Family Planning Commission, the Government of China's primary family planning agency, is approximately $3.8 billion. The principal goal of UNFPA's program in China is to demonstrate that voluntary family planning is a viable and desirable alternative to coercion.
Under current U.S. law, no U.S. funds are spent in China, and these funds are kept in a segregated account. In addition, for every dollar that UNFPA spends in China, the U.S. contribution is reduced by one dollar. Under this system, it is absolutely impossible for any U.S. funds to be utilized to make voluntary family planning and health-related services available to women in China.
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UNFPA operates effective, voluntary family planning programs in 140 countries around the world. It has not, does not and will not ever condone coercive activities in China or in any other nation. In all of its programs, UNFPA works to promote safe pregnancy and delivery for mothers and children, prevent teenage pregnancy, prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases, and provide voluntary reproductive health care for the poor. In addition, UNFPA is actively engaged with all of its program countries to promote laws and policies that advance gender equality through education and appropriate health care including maternal and child health, and condemn violence against women and other harmful practices such as Female Genital Mutilation.
UNFPA is committed to providing timely, accurate information to the U.S. Congress and other international donors to our programs. When further details of the allegations you mention in your letter become available I hope your staff will share them with UNFPA so that the Executive Board team can investigate them and take appropriate action, if warranted.
Sincerely,
| Stirling Scruggs, |
| Director of Information and External Relations. |
Cc: Congressman Tom Lantos