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awareness that birth control, as a fundamental policy, has a direct bearing on the nation's prosperity and people's happy family life.
Government officials are required to take the lead in carrying out the policy and set a good example. In recent years, the Chinese Family Planning Association has set up more than 600,000 grassroots branches with 32m members to aid the masses in self-education, self-management and self-service, combining ideological education with helping the masses solve practical problems. At the same time, the government has adopted some necessary economic and administrative measures as supplementary means. These measures are all adopted in keeping with the law, and with the ultimate aim of persuasion.
The family planning programme puts contraception first, to protect the health of women and children. The government has made great efforts to spread scientific knowledge of contraceptive practices, and to provide couples of child- bearing age who do not want child with safe, efficacious, simple and inexpensive contraceptives and the choice of a birth-control operation. At present, about 75% of the couples of child-bearing age throughout the country are resorting to various kinds of contraceptive practices. All forms of forced abortion are resolutely opposed. Artificial abortion, only as a remedy for contraception failure, is performed on a voluntary basis and with guarantee of safety. In a situation of a notably lower birthrate, the ratio of annual births to artificial abortions is about the medium level in the current world. This has resulted from effective practices of contraception. Now China is adopting practical and effective measures to further lower the ratio.
China's population policy has two objectives: control of population growth and improvement in quality of the population. Work in this field not only encourages couples of child-bearing age to have fewer children but also provides them with mother care, baby care and advice on optimum methods of child-bearing and child-rearing. These services include pre-marriage check-ups, heredity consultation, pre- natal diagnosis and care during pregnancy to help couples have sound, healthy babies.
Drowning or abandoning female infants, a pernicious practice left over from feudal society, occurs much less often now, but has not been stamped out entirely in some remote areas. China's law clearly forbids the drowning of infants and other acts of killing them. The government has adopted practical measures for handling these kinds of criminal offences according to law.
China's family planning policy fully conforms to Item 9 of the United Nations' Declaration of Mexico City on Population and Growth in 1984, which demands that "countries which consider that their population growth rate hinders their national development plans should adopt appropriate population plans and programmes. It also accords with the UN World Population Plan of Action which stresses that every country has the sovereign right to formulate and implement its own population policy.
Some people who censure Chi: d's taily planning peacy as "Violating human rights" and being "inhuman" do not understand or consider China's real situation. But some others
8 Nov 91
have deliberately distorted the facts in an attempt to put pressure on China and interfere in China's internal affairs. China has only two alternatives in handling its population problem: to implement the family planning policy or to allow blind growth in births. The former choice enables children to be born and grow up healthily and live a better life, while the latter one leads to unrestrained expansion of population so that the majority of the people will be short of food and clothing, while some will even tend to die young. Which of the two pays more attention to human rights and is more humane? The answer is obvious.
IX. GUARANTEE OF HUMAN RIGHTS FOR THE
DISABLED
An estimate based on a sample survey in 1987 shows that in the mainland of China there are about 51m disabled people, or 5% of the population. The Chinese government has paid close attention to the question of rights of the disabled and provided them special assistance and protection in order to reduce or eliminate the effects of disability and the external obstacles and guarantee their rights.
China's Constitution provides that the state guarantees that the disabled enjoy the same civic rights as the able-bodied. The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress adopted the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Disabled Persons in December 1990. This law, guided by the principles of “equality", "participation" and "co- enjoyment", stipulates that the disabled enjoy equal rights with other citizens and be protected from infringement. It also states that measures of support and help shall be taken to develop undertakings for the handicapped, promote their equal participation in social life and guarantee their share of the material and cultural achievements of society.
Many important laws such as the Criminal Law, the Criminal Procedure Law, the General Principles of the Civil Law, the Civil Procedure Law, the Marriage Law, the Inheritance Law, the Electoral Law, the Military Service Law and the Compulsory Education Law, have special provisions guaranteeing the rights and interests of the handicapped.
In accordance with these laws, the Chinese government has worked out specific policies, rules and regulations to protect the rights and interests of the disabled, for example, the China Five-Year Work Programme for People with Disability, the Several Viewpoints on Developing the Education for People with Disability, the Programme for the Implementation of Three Rehabilitation Projects for People with Disability, the Circular on Tax Exemption for Private Business Run by Disabled People and the Circular on Tax Exemption for Social Welfare Production Units.
Authorities in some provinces, municipalities directly under the central government and autonomous regions have worked out local laws and regulations to safeguard the right and inter.sis of the disabled Many local governments have adopted concrete measures to provide the disabled with preferential assistance, treatment and care.
To guarantee the right of the disabled to elect and to be zieved. China's Flectoral Law stipulates that those who are unable to write their vote may ask others whom they trust to write for them. Appraisal of the mentally or intellectually handicapped who are unable to participate in elections has to