Government and police like Japanese invaders
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – For months the police and the government have implemented the one-child policy by forcing women in Bobai County (Yulin Prefecture, Guangxi) to have abortions or sterilisations if they had more than one child, or imposing fines worth years of wages, taking away everything from or destroying the homes of those who could not pay. Now police is patrolling the streets with residents looking on as if they were part of an invading and tyrannical army.
In a silent show of solidarity and resistance to more abuse hundreds of residents have visited the families in the village of Shabi and neighbouring villages whose houses have been ransacked by government officers
In a situation where official comments are still few and far in between, some say that there have been no arrests. The Xinhua news agency did none the less report 28 people detained after hundreds of protesters stormed government offices in what was the worst local unrest in years.
Yet some people are now daring to talk about what happened.
“They are just like the Japanese army,” one man told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, in a direct reference to the worst atrocities inflicted upon the Chinese in living memory.
“They come in and take away everything we have. They take away pregnant women and force them to have abortions. They impose ridiculous fines on us. We are fighting for survival.” He added.
“Some unmarried women have even been fined and forced to have surgery [to prevent them having children],” another man said.
Fines for an extra child can range from 20 to 30,000 yuan in an area where the average monthly salary is around 500-600 yuan and some families have four or five children. The net result has been police robbing those who could not pay.
The official Guangxi Daily reported in March that in Bobai 5,896 officials were mobilised to impose family planning controls.
“They knocked down our door one night last week and started to search for valuables,” one woman said. “It was as if we were robbed. They took away everything useful—even my kitchen utensils. They then pulled out our windows. We lost our home overnight.”
The family said that since then they had to sleep under a staircase because even their bed was confiscated.
There are many similar cases in Bobai. Stories like this one are legion.
“The most important thing for a family is a secure place to live and food to eat. If you take these things away, everyone will revolt against you,” a neighbour said.
Even though the one-child policy has been in place on the mainland for three decades, it doesn't apply uniformly. But even where it does apply, its enforcement in many rural areas has been lax. And more recently, wealthier couples have been able to just pay fines to have more children.
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