“If I had not agreed they would have put my wife and I in jail for 15 days....then they would have sterilized me anyway”
Population Research Institute
A 42-year-old man and father of four has claimed that he was forcibly sterilized at the hands of local family planning authorities in Yunnan province in southwest China.
The victim, a Mr. Hu, says that he was detained by family planning officials on the evening of February 8th while he was visiting a friend’s house for the Chinese New Year. According to Hu, several family planning officials arrived at the scene in plain clothes telling him that he was required to go with them to the town government office.
Since the early 1980’s, China’s one-child policy had made it illegal for most couples to have more than one child. Couples who exceeded their government mandated birth quota where penalized with steep fines equal to two to ten times their annual income. In 2016, the China Government changed the one-child policy to a two-child policy. Couples are now allowed to have a second child but are still prohibited from having a third.
Married at the age of 19, Hu had three children with his first wife. After the couple’s third child, Hu’s wife was sterilized and the couple paid the compulsory fine. Hu later divorced and remarried and had a fourth child with his second wife.
According to Hu, despite having had only one child with his second wife, family planning officials insisted that he was in violation of the two-child policy and would therefore need to be sterilized.
Refusing to comply with officials’ demands, Hu argued that he had already paid a fine for his third child and had committed no wrong. Hu further argued that the Yunnan family planning officials had no authority over him as he was no longer registered in that province but was now registered instead in Sichuan province where he and his family have been living for the past few years.
Family planning officials then purportedly proceeded to push and beat him, according to Hu’s account of the incident on Weibo :
A 42-year-old man and father of four has claimed that he was forcibly sterilized at the hands of local family planning authorities in Yunnan province in southwest China.
The victim, a Mr. Hu, says that he was detained by family planning officials on the evening of February 8th while he was visiting a friend’s house for the Chinese New Year. According to Hu, several family planning officials arrived at the scene in plain clothes telling him that he was required to go with them to the town government office.
Since the early 1980’s, China’s one-child policy had made it illegal for most couples to have more than one child. Couples who exceeded their government mandated birth quota where penalized with steep fines equal to two to ten times their annual income. In 2016, the China Government changed the one-child policy to a two-child policy. Couples are now allowed to have a second child but are still prohibited from having a third.
Married at the age of 19, Hu had three children with his first wife. After the couple’s third child, Hu’s wife was sterilized and the couple paid the compulsory fine. Hu later divorced and remarried and had a fourth child with his second wife.
According to Hu, despite having had only one child with his second wife, family planning officials insisted that he was in violation of the two-child policy and would therefore need to be sterilized.
Refusing to comply with officials’ demands, Hu argued that he had already paid a fine for his third child and had committed no wrong. Hu further argued that the Yunnan family planning officials had no authority over him as he was no longer registered in that province but was now registered instead in Sichuan province where he and his family have been living for the past few years.
Family planning officials then purportedly proceeded to push and beat him, according to Hu’s account of the incident on Weibo :
Ten population control workers surrounded me while the local Communist Party Secretary Lo and the worker wearing glasses grabbed me by the collar. Then they began to beat me and pushed me around. A fist hit me in the face, and my neck was clawed and scratched. They forced me to sit on a stool and took pictures. Then one of the workers shouted, “immediately notify the [clinic] that we are bringing in someone by force to be sterilized.”Population Research Institute report continues
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