This is huge: after decades of enforcing Chinese couples to have just one child, or else face a variety of punishments, China has decided to end its controversial one-child policy amid concerns for their aging population.
The state-run Xinhua news agency reported the news direct from a statement from the Communist Party, saying that it is “to promote balanced development of population.”
Couples will now be allowed to have up to two children under the ‘one couple, two children‘ policy.
The one-child policy, introduced nationally in 1979, is estimated to have prevented about 400 million births, and has been implicated as a cause of China’s significant gender imbalance.
Barring a few exceptions, couples who violated the one-child policy faced a number of punishments, including heavy fines, loss of employment, forced abortions, and forced sterilizations.
Human rights group Amnesty International, however, have warned that this new policy is “not enough”.
“Couples that have two children could still be subjected to coercive and intrusive forms of contraception, and even forced abortions – which amount to torture,” Amnesty China researcher William Nee said in a statement. “The state has no business regulating how many children people have.”
“If China is serious about respecting human rights, the government should immediately end such invasive and punitive controls over people’s decisions to plan families and have children.”
Picture: ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images.
