Two years ago, Zhang Chuanxin and his wife could hardly hold
their heads high in their village as Zhang's mother kept
complaining about their failure to "carry on their family line" by
having a son.
Zhang, father of two daughters in Liugou village of Huaiyuan
county in east Anhui
Province, however, found his life turned around in 2001 when
China launched a national "care for girls" campaign to help control
the gender imbalance in this world's most populous nation.
"Raising girls is as good as raising boys now," Zhang said,
attributing his improvement in living standards to the local
government's help, which is part of the campaign.
The changes have been great for the Zhangs since the campaign
was put in place two years ago.
After Huaiyuan county was selected for the first trial of the
"care for girls" campaign in 2001, Zhang was subsidized by the
county family planning committee with a four-wheel vehicle for
freighting services while his wife got an aid fund to grow food
grains and vegetables at home.
Soon Zhang and his family built a new house, an achievement
Zhang said was unimaginable two years ago when their family
sheltered themselves in two decaying rooms.
Like Zhang, households with only one or two daughters in
Huaiyuan county will get 2,000 yuan (some US$240) in support funds
and be exempt from agricultural taxes and nine-year compulsory
education fees for their daughters, a preferential treatment
totaling some 30,000 yuan (US$3,600) until the girls are of
marriageable age.
Officials said the "care for girls" campaign aimed to tackle the
gender imbalance among newborn babies and eliminate gender
discrimination against girls in many rural and underdeveloped
areas.
Some Chinese demographers worry that the gender imbalance may
create a havoc that will haunt the country for generations.
Although the Chinese government has banned gender selection of
newborn babies by ultrasound and selective induced abortion, some
doctors secretly provide such services for extra fees, sometimes as
high as 1,000 yuan (US$120).
"It is difficult to know the truth because pregnant women could
choose to ask for the services and then lie about it afterwards,"
said Zhang Shufang, head of Chu'an town of Renqiu city, northern
China's Hebei
Province.
Though the idea of "ladies first" is increasingly recognized
inurban Chinese cities, the saying "raising a daughter is like
watering someone else's fields" is deep-rooted among people in
other parts of China, especially in the countryside.
In regions dominated by sex bias, illegal ultrasound scanning to
determine the sex of babies in the womb is common among quite a few
couples who would rather have a boy than a girl.
"The traditional Chinese thinking that men are more valuable
than women dominated the country for many centuries," said Pan
Guiyu, also a vice-minister of the State Population and
Family Planning Commission.
"Some rural people just dumped female infants outside orphanages
immediately after their birth," Pan said.
She acknowledged that 99 percent of Chinese children adopted by
foreigners are girls, and boys under the age of 10 number millions
more than girls of the same age.
Such sons-only ethos usually ended up in selective abortions and
the most worrying statistics in China's 2000 census -- a dramatic
drop in the number of newly born girls.
The census showed that for every 1,000 new-born girls there are
1,168.6 boys. In Xinyi city of southern Guangdong
Province, the figure even soared to 1,432.3, much higher than
the normal level of between 1,050 to 1,070.
"The imbalance of the ratio between newborn boys and girls has a
negative impact on China's population structure," said Zhao Bingli,
vice-minister of the State Population and Family Planning
Commission.
"The gender imbalance is a new challenge population and family
planning departments must face in the new era," Zhao said, urging
the elimination of gender discrimination against girls beginning
with pregnancy and showing more care for girls.
To solve the headache, China had launched a "care for girls"
campaign nationwide to promote the idea of gender equality and
improve the living standards of girls-only families through its
widespread family planning network.
In provinces like Anhui, Jiangxi,
Fujian,
Guangdong and Hubei,
local governments had resorted to comic strips to publicize care
for girls and their families and the distribution of detailed lists
offering free medical treatment to those girls.
Meanwhile, dictums like "men and women are born equal" and
information denouncing the discrimination against girls have been
added to the textbooks for rural primary schools in these
provinces.
Departments of health, public security and justice also joined
hands in the campaign to severely punish those who use ultrasonic
scanning to determine sex in the womb and activities involving
selective abortion.
In Huaiyuan county alone, police investigated 65 cases involving
foetus sex test and illegal selective abortion since 2000,
penalizing 50 officials and doctors while outlawing 215 unlicensed
private clinics conducting ultrasonic scanning.
As part of the "care for girls" campaign, the State Population
and Family Planning Commission sent a 50-member team of noted
family planning workers and medical experts to lectures on
reproductive health and to look into the living and health
conditions of girls in the western regions.
The Chinese government has set a timetable for the year 2010 to
bring the gender ratio among newborn babies back to the normal and
officials said a new concept towards marriage and reproduction
would take shape by then.
"I'm optimistic about that," said Zhao Bingli.
(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2003)