New Two-Child Policy Officially Passes In China: Human Rights Groups Say It Isn’t Enough

After announcing a new two-child policy in China in October, the change in legislation has now been formally approved and will go into effect on January 1, 2016. According to sociologist Lu Jiehua, 100 million couples could be affected by being allowed to have two children.

The ruling Communist Party issued a statement back in October when news first broke of the impending change.

“To promote a balanced growth of population, China will continue to uphold the basic national policy of population control and improve its strategy on population development. China will fully implement the policy of ‘one couple, two children’ in a proactive response to the issue of an aging population.”

In the 1970s, China began a one-child-per-couple policy in an attempt to control population growth. Propaganda was used to implement the one-child policy, but abortions, heavy fines, and forced sterilization were used when local officials felt the propaganda wasn’t enough.

China delivers on two-child birth policy https://t.co/vvM4Z7PJoz

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 27, 2015

According to CNN, the Chinese government began to relax the one-child policy in January of 2014 for mothers and fathers who were an only child. Though China has announced the new two-child policy and will put the policy into action in less than a week, human rights group Amnesty International issued a statement saying the policy change is not enough. William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International, stated if China wants to respect human rights, then they should stop regulating how many children couples can have.

“Couples that have two children could still be subjected to coercive and intrusive forms of contraception, and even forced abortions — which amount to torture. The state has no business regulating how many children people have. If China is serious about respecting human rights, the government should immediately end such invasive and punitive controls over people’s decisions to plan families and have children.”

Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, said the new two-child policy will continue to affect women negatively because for those who are unmarried, it will still be illegal to have a child. Even those women who are married could still be forced to have an abortion if they become pregnant with a third child.

“It will still be illegal for an unmarried woman to have a child. Regardless of the number of children allowed, women who get pregnant without permission will still be dragged out of their homes, strapped down on tables, and forced to abort babies that they want.”

Wang Feng, a professor at Fudan University and a leading demographic expert on China, said earlier this year that the one-child policy was unnecessary because birth rates began slowing down in the 1980s.

“China has already begun to feel an unfolding crisis in terms of its population change. History will look back to see the one-child policy as one of the most glaring policy mistakes that China has made in its modern history.”

China’s government has said they could become the country to have the highest population of elderly people in 15 years, with more than 400 million over the age of 60. More than 1.3 billion people total now reside in the country. The impending issues of a largely aging population are issues China could soon be facing.

#China‘s new ‘two-child policy’: Still coercive. Eberstadt explains: https://t.co/WO4GNdBZIX pic.twitter.com/uTvrZpWnje

— AEI Foreign Policy (@AEIfdp) December 22, 2015

News Corp Australia Network reports that experts believe the new two-child policy is too little, too late to address the population crisis China will face in the near future. The working-age population is continuing to shrink.

The Wall Street Journal also reports many couples may not want a second child due to the cost of raising another child. The relaxation of the one-child policy in 2014 didn’t lead to a baby boom as some predicted.

Nevertheless, China hopes to solve the looming population crisis with the implementation of the new two-child policy.

[Photo by China News/Getty Images]