Who Controls the Family? – Philip P. Pan

Posted by Sophie Beach | Aug 28, 2005

A crowd of disheveled villagers was waiting when Chen Guangcheng stepped out of the car. More women than men among them, a mix of desperation and hope on their faces, they ushered him along a dirt path and

into a nearby house. Then, one after another, they told him about the city’s campaign against “unplanned births.”

Since March, the farmers said, local authorities had been raiding the homes of families with two children and demanding at least one parent be sterilized. Women pregnant with a third child were forced to have abortions.

And if people tried to hide, the officials jailed their relatives and neighbors, beating them and holding them hostage until the fugitives turned themselves in.

Categories : Law,Society