This
is “Huiqing,” a one month old baby girl, born in a remote village in
China. Who wouldn’t love this adorable baby? We hope she will never
know the firestorm of controversy that her birth brought to her family –
all because she was conceived without a “Birth Permit” -- and then
born, not a boy, but a girl.
You
see, Huiqing was conceived under China’s brutal One Child Policy. She
has an older brother, so her family was not allowed to have another
child. Her parents did not have a “birth permit” for her. She was an
“illegal child,” subject to forced abortion. Her parents thought she
was a boy, and so bribed the village leader not to report their illegal
pregnancy to the Family Planning Police.
Then,
China announced its new “Two Child Policy,” so Huiqing’s parents
thought they were safe. But in many areas, children conceived under the
One Child Policy were not grandfathered in under the Two Child Policy.
They remain illegal!
After
Huiqing was born, out of the blue, Family Planning Police arrived at
the home of her parents and ordered her mother to be sterilized. Under
the Two Child Policy, women are routinely sterilized after their second
child – to prevent them from having a third child. These forced
sterilizations are not carried out by highly trained gynecological
surgeons. People with very little training often butcher women in the
remote villages.
Huiqing's father wanted another son. If Huiqing's mother were sterilized, this would be impossible. So
Huiquing’s father began to pressure her mother to “give her away” to
avoid the sterilization. This sometimes means finding a childless
couple to adopt her. It sometimes means leaving her in a field to die.
Huiqing’s
brave mother would not accept the pressure from her husband or the
Chinese government. She wanted desperately to keep her daughter, who
brought her much happiness. But she did not know what to do or where to
turn.
Thankfully,
a Women’s Rights Without Frontiers’ (WRWF) undercover fieldworker found
Huiqing’s mother before it was too late. Our fieldworker told her that
we are helping mothers keep their girls because girls are just as good
as boys. Our fieldworker offered Huiqing’s mother a monthly stipend for a year to empower her to keep her daughter.
With the help of this stipend, Huiqing’s mother is defying the pressure
from the Chinese government and her husband and is raising Huiqing on
her own. She told our fieldworker that if WRWF can help her, she will
survive on her own. Nothing is more important to her than to stay with
her baby daughter.
It is such an honor to help brave women like Huiqing’s mother! And you have a unique opportunity to help as well!
