China’s “One-Child Policy” is Being Side-Stepped

As many as 1,968 officials in central China’s Hunan Province have been found breaching the nation’s one-child policy between 2000 and 2005, the provincial family planning commission said Friday.Also exposed by the commission are 21 national and local lawmakers, 24 political advisors, 112 entrepreneurs and six senior intellectuals.Some officials who have had more than one child but had gone their way unnoticed during their tenure of leadership were exposed when they were investigated for corruption, he said.

To curb population growth, China’s family planning policy was enacted in the late 1970s to encourage late marriages and late childbearing, and it limited most urban couples to one child and most rural couples to two.

The policy is credited with preventing more than 400 million births since it was introduced.

In Hunan, officials estimate 30 million births have been prevented due to the policy. As the 7th most populous province in China, the Hunan provincial government has vowed to keep its population within 70.1 million by 2010.

Meanwhile, Hunan has greatly raised the fines imposed on violators of the one-child policy. In some cases, the fine could be as high as over one million yuan (130,000 U.S. dollars).

But heavy fines and exposures seemed to hardly stop the celebrities and rich people, as there are still many people, who can afford the heavy penalties, insist on having multiple kids, the Hunan commission spokesman said.

The culture and society in Hunan is undergoing massive and radical changes. The statement that “The policy is credited with preventing more than 400 million births” really saddens us because we know that number represents a HUGE number of innocent little babies who were aborted and never given a chance to grow up and make their contribution to China and to the world.

Please pray with us that through the upheavals in China’s society, people’s need for a relationship with Jesus Christ will become increasingly clear. Ask that as people begin searching for God, there will be faithful people ready and willing to share the Good News with them!