WATERING THE NEIGHBOUR'S GARDEN: THE GROWING - CICRED

INTERVENTIONS TO BALANCE SEX RATIO AT BIRTH IN RURAL CHINA
should not be sold in any retail drugstore or by any individual.
4) Infant death report system: medical institutions should provide
death certificate for newborn deaths in the institution, and inform local
family planning department about the event. Parents should report a
newborn’s death within 48 hours to the local government and family
planning department, if the death happens outside medical institution.
Any practice of forging death certificates should be considered a
crime.
5) Enforcing gender equity in related areas by law and regulation
could also have an impact on balancing sex ratio at birth in the long
run. Changing the national laws and regulations take an even longer
time, but some laws and regulations in the process of initiation and
modification have considered gender equity issues, such as the draft of
Labour and Employment Law (laodong hetong fa, 2006) which states that
sex discrimination in employment is illegal.
3.2. The “Care for Girls” campaign and other related initiatives
The National Population and Family Planning Commission
(NPFPC) started a pilot intervention project entitled “Care for Girls”
(guan ai nu hai) in March 2003. The short-term goal of the project is to
create a favourable environment nationwide for girls’ development and
reverse the trend of increasing sex ratio at birth through integrated
measures in the next three to five years (which implies the year 2008,
but officially it was not so clearly stated). The long-term goals are: (1)
to create an incentive mechanism nationwide for girls’ development
and for families who practice birth control and have only female
child(ren); (2) to change people’s fertility ideology regarding son
preference; and (3) to balance the sex ratio at birth by 2010 (NPFPC,
2005). The project has first been implemented in 11 provinces with
high SRB, and one county with high SRB was selected as a pilot county
in each province. The national “Care for Girls” campaign also has
addressed the issue of imbalanced SRB by widely promoting gender
equity in the media, and emphasizing the right for survival and
development of girls. The project activities also include measures to
help girls to continue schooling and complete nine-years of education,
help poor families with only daughters, and encourage newly married
couples to reverse the tradition of patrilocality. The project also
emphasizes administrative measures to crack down on foetal sex
identification practices and sex-selective abortions, and to eliminate
female infanticide or girl baby abandonment.
Some other governmental activities are likely to play a role in
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