WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

INTERVENTIONS TO BALANCE SEX RATIO AT BIRTH IN RURAL CHINA
3.1. Legal intervention
In fact, the issue of imbalanced sex ratio at birth has raised the
attention of the government since the late 1980s. The Ministry of
Health and State Family Planning Commission jointly distributed in
1986 a regulation by the Beijing Family Planning Commission and
Bureau of Health on “prohibition of foetus sex identification for nonmedical
purposes” (guanyu bude renyi jinxing taier xingbie yuce de tongzhi).
The Ministry of Health distributed an urgent notice in 1989 on a
“strict prohibition of medical practice on foetus sex identification and
misuse of techniques of artificial insemination” (guanyu yanjin yong yiliao
jishu jianbie tai’er xingbie he lanyong rengong shoujing jishu de jinji tongzhi).
Another joint notice issued by the Ministry of Health and the State
Family Planning Commission was distributed in 1993 regarding “the
restatement of the prohibition of foetus sex identification practice.”
(guanyu chongshen yanjin jinxing taier xingbie yuce de tongzhi). The Supreme
Court and the Supreme Procurator issued a notice on “punishment
according to the Law on crimes against family planning.” (guanyu yifa
yancheng pohuai jihuashengyu fanzui huodong de tongzhi). The law of Maternal
and Infant Health (muying baojian fa) implemented in 1994 was the first
to state that foetus sex identification is strictly prohibited.
Article 22 in the Law of Population and Family Planning (renkou yu
jihua shengyu fa) enacted in September 2002, states that “Discrimination
against and maltreatment of women who give births to baby girls or
who suffer from infertility are prohibited. Discrimination against,
maltreatment of, and abandonment of baby girls are prohibited.”
Article 35 states that the “Use of ultrasonic or other techniques to
identify the sex of the foetus for non-medical purposes is strictly
prohibited. Sex-selective pregnancy termination for non-medical
purposes is strictly prohibited.”
In 2002, the National Population and Family Planning
Commission, Ministry of Health, and State Food and Drug
Administration jointly issued a “Regulation of Prohibition of Foetus
Sex Identification and Sex-selective Pregnancy Termination for Non-
Medical Reasons” (guanyu jinzhi feiyixue xuyao de taier xingbie jianding he
xuanze xingbie de rengong zhongzhi renshen de guiding). 5
In 1998 and 2002, the National Population and Family Planning
Commission issued documents to intervene comprehensively on the
imbalanced SRB jointly with other 11 ministries, which are: the IEC
Department of Chinese Communist Party, the State Family Planning
5 This regulation will be referred to as the Prohibition Regulation later in this chapter.
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