Women's Rights Without Frontiers and China's Coercive One Child Policy

( Zenit.org).- “China’s one-child policy causes more violence against women and girls than any other policy on earth, than any official policy in the history of the world.”
These are the passionate words of Reggie Littlejohn, a U.S. attorney who founded Women’s Rights Without Frontiers — an international coalition that opposes forced abortion and sexual slavery in China. A Californian who in her youth worked alongside Mother Teresa in the slums of Calcutta, Littlejohn first came into contact with the policy when she represented Chinese refugees seeking political asylum in the United States in the 1990s.
“They had first been persecuted for being Christian and were then forcibly sterilized,” she recalls. “That opened up two whole new worlds to me that I wasn’t familiar with before.”
Speaking with ZENIT while on a recent visit to Rome, Littlejohn summed up the one child policy as nothing short of a “Chinese war against women and girls.” Forced abortions among women who violate the policy are commonplace in the country and sometimes carried out up to nine months of pregnancy. They can be so violent, Littlejohn says, “the women die along with their full term babies.”
But the brutality of forced abortion isn’t the only human rights violation wrought by China’s infamous “family planning policy.” It leads to gendercide because of China’s traditional preference for boys, leaving girls disproportionately subject to abortion, abandonment and infanticide. It results in sexual slavery as the elimination of baby girls has led to an increase in the trafficking of women from neighbouring countries into China, driven by an estimated 37 million more Chinese males than females.
And although the connection isn’t fully proven, the policy may also be the cause of a high rate of female suicide in China (the World Health Organization says the country has the highest female suicide rate of any country in the world, with approximately 500 Chinese women ending their lives each day). “I don’t think that’s unrelated to forced abortion, forced sterilization and…
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EWTN to Interview Reggie This Saturday, July 2 – Listen In!
Barbara McGuigan of EWTN will interview Reggie on her weekly, two-hour radio broadcast, “The Good Fight,” about those who have faithfully battled for the Lord, past and present. The format of this program is that McGuigan introduces it with highlights from the life of a “past saint,” and then interviews a guest she gives the daunting title, “future saint.” On Saturday’s program, the “past saint” will be Mother Teresa. Though she does not consider herself to be anything so grand as a “future saint,” Reggie is greatly humbled to be the guest on this program!
A little-known fact about Reggie is that she worked in Calcutta with Mother Teresa, both in the Home for the Dying and in the Children’s Home, and had the honor of getting to know Mother Teresa personally. This experience had a profound effect on Reggie’s life. After Reggie speaks about her experience working with Mother Teresa, the interview will focus on the brutal truth behind China’s One Child Policy.
Women’s Rights Without Frontiers is not a religious organization, so when speaking on matters of faith, Reggie will be speaking from a personal perspective. You can listen to the interview by using this link on Saturday, July 2 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. You can even call in to ask questions! Here’s a link to the program:
EWTN – Barbara McGuigan “The Good Fight”
http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/seriessearchprog.asp?seriesID=7084&T1=barbara

http://www.zenit.org/article-32970?l=english
Trend to Kill Baby Girls Gets UN Attention
International Groups Look at Sex-Selective Abortion
STRASBOURG, France, JUNE 29, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The trend to abort baby girls shows that crises are related: the cultural crisis leads to a demographic one, and ultimately economic woes.
This is the reflection made by Grégor Puppinck, director of the European Centre for Law and Justice, in a statement from that group, which reports that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the United Nations are addressing sex-selective abortion.
The PACE filed a motion called “Sex-selective abortion — ‘Gendercide'” in May 2010 (Doc. 12258), inviting the member states of the Council of Europe to “condemn sex-selective abortion, wherever and whenever it occurs.”
The report notes the preference for male offspring, “especially in cultures or countries where family sizes are constrained.”
It highlights the plight of China — where 124 boys are born for every 100 girl — as well as India, South Korea, Taiwan and even some European countries.
The ECLJ noted: “Considering possible consequences of this ‘gendercide,’ the document affirms that this ‘gender imbalance constitutes a serious threat for global security. The selective pre-natal killing of females will in the near future lead to a further radical decline of birth rates, which could dangerously undermine the sustainability of entire national economies.’ The motion also mentions the negative consequences of future male-dominated populations where men are unable to find wives and start a family.”
In January, a first draft of the memorandum was considered and debate and vote on a resolution is expected in October.
This month, five U.N. agencies issued a joint statement on “Preventing gender-biased sex selection.”
The statement notes that while the biologically normal sex ratio at birth ranges from 102 to 106 males per 100 females, ratios higher than normal — sometimes as high as 130 — have been observed.