Abstract
China’s one-child policy, initiated to curtail China’s rapid population growth, has resulted in fundamental human rights abuses. Due to the cultural stigma of having female children, the stringent policy has led to millions of female infants being aborted, abandoned, or killed. As China struggles with population control, families are faced with the necessity of bearing male children, who are perceived as being more valuable to the family and who are often charged with the care of their elderly parents. Consequently, the elimination of female infants has created a skewed sex ratio in China’s population—the social, economic, and physical repercussions of which are yet to be fully realized. Female infanticide, sex-selective abortion, drowning, and the withholding of health care and nutrition are only a few consequences of the restrictive one-child policy.
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Recommended Citation
Wall, Winter
(2009)
"China’s Infanticide Epidemic,"
Human Rights & Human Welfare: Vol. 9:
Iss.
1, Article 51.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/hrhw/vol9/iss1/51
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