It's a Girl! Page #4

They reported me.

Li and her husband lived

in a rural village

with their two daughters.

They were allowed two children

because their first

child was a girl.

But their families desperately

wanted them to have a son.

So, though it was

against the law,

Li and her husband decided to

have a third child,

in the hopes that it

would be a boy.

When they found out that they

would be having another girl,

their parents told them

to get rid of the baby.

Another daughter would

do them no good.

But Li and her husband

wanted to keep their child.

They called her

husband's parents

to tell them the third one

was going to be a girl.

Then the grandparents

told them to abort it.

But Li and her husband said no,

they would still have

it even if it is a girl.

In China there is a system

of paid informants,

where women who are

illegally pregnant

can be informed on

by their neighbors,

their friends, their co-workers,

their supervisors...

just walking down the street

and looking a little bit bigger.

These are paid informants.

So then, the family

planning office

keeps track of all these women

who are illegally pregnant

and then they will have

a family planning raid

where they will do a sweep of

that particular neighborhood

and just drag out all the women

who are illegally pregnant

and bring them down to the

family planning office

and force them all

to have abortions.

The Chinese One-Child policy

is enforced by the Family

Planning Police,

a militant order that monitors

and arrests families

in violation of the policy.

The Family Planning Police heard Li

was pregnant with her third child,

so they forced their

way into her home.

Li was just behind the door.

She was too frightened to move.

It scared her down to the core.

Her heart was pounding hard.

He looked inside the window.

I was sitting against the

door. He didn't see me.

If he had seen me, I would

have been taken away, too.

They would have, for sure,

fined us and aborted my child.

They wanted my husband to go

with them to their office.

He refused to go.

They dragged him to their office.

A few of them yelled at him,

and dragged him to the Family

Planning Committee office.

At that point, a bunch of

people restrained him,

more than ten men.

His hands were shaking like this,

just shaking like this.

Those men dragged him

away as he struggled.

That afternoon, they said they

would release him

if he paid a 10,000 yuan

($1500 USD) fine.

To save the life of their baby girl,

Li and her husband

went into hiding.

Eventually, Li gave

birth to their daughter.

But because their child

was born illegally,

they had to remain hidden.

If you are at home, you

can't leave the house.

You will just hide

inside the house.

Even if you hide in the

house, if they found out,

they would still come to

your door and take you away.

So, we are too afraid

to stay there.

The Family Planning people

chased them everywhere.

When she went to her

husband's family,

the Family Planning people

there chased them, also.

They didn't know what to do,

so they left at the

beginning of this year.

They said that people are coming

to catch families with two girls.

Just families that have

had two or three girls.

People who had more than

two kids will be taken away.

So they fled again.

This time to a distant region,

leaving behind their three daughters

with different relatives.

Today, Li and her husband work

in a distant, far-off factory,

earning what they can to send home

to provide for their daughters.

They miss their children,

but they also understand

that if they were to

return to their village,

they would be arrested

and severely punished

by the Family Planning Police.

Mom went to work

and make money.

She needs to make money

so I can go to school.

I miss her so much.

I want my mom to come back.

I don't want her to work anymore.

I told her to abort it, but

she insisted on having it.

If she aborted it, first off,

less burden.

Secondly, you would be

better off with a boy.

She said, "I don't care

about the burden.

Even if there were

burdens to come,

they would be my

burdens and not yours. "

I am not with my children,

and I can't take care of them.

I worry about them being

sick or something like that.

I am thinking about this

right now.

I am mostly thinking about

my youngest daughter.

She was only five

months when I left.

I left her at home.

We just want to work here

for a few more years

so we can go back

and fix our house

and take care of our children

so that they can live

a better life, too.

The One-Child Policy

was enforced

through financial

punishment on parents.

Now, during the 80s these

financial punishments

implied that parents were

denied some of their income

to the tune of 10% of income

from both parents for 14 years

until the child reached

15 years old.

And in recent years, the

One-Child Policy punishments

have become even more severe...

Two to three years of

family income

for parents to have at

least one kid.

Some of these parents have

decided to have a kid

in spite of the policy.

But for many parents,

they were forced to choose

between a financial punishment

they could not afford,

or not having a son,

which is something they also

couldn't deal with.

And so for those parents,

they were choosing

between financial ruin or engaging

in sex-selective abortion.

I have been married

for about ten years.

Five years ago, my husband

and I got pregnant

without much preparation.

Our daughter was an

unexpected surprise.

At that time, we didn't

prepare very well.

So our hearts were very torn,

but since it was our first child,

after we accepted it,

we put a lot of heart into the

whole pregnancy process

and her growth afterwards.

Last month, we found out suddenly

that I am pregnant (again).

I am really looking

forward to this new life.

On the other hand, this also

put a lot of pressure on me.

Because policies are not

supportive of it.

Some policies encourage

people to report on people,

so if someone in the community

wants to report you,

that person would be able

to get some rewards.

Then I might be forced to have

an abortion or something.

And my husband's job

would be affected, too.

If it's serious I might need

to leave my job,

because having a second

child is against the policy.

Also, if we are going to

have the child in China,

this child would not

have citizenship,

which means this child

can't go on an airplane

or can't leave the country,

but can only take the

train or drive.

Going to school and

other welfare,

he won't have these.

Parents would also carry

a name on their back,

a bad name.

In China, a new population of

illegal children are emerging.

These children have no

official existence;

they are ineligible for

education and health care.

And when they grow up,

they can not officially be married,

own land, or hold a job.

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