On March 3, the House approved, 402-2, a resolution (H. Res. 350) urging the U.S. representatives to the 60th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to introduce a resolution calling upon the government of the People’s Republic of China to end its human rights violations in China. Sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), the resolution was approved by the House International Relations Committee on February 25 (see The Source, 3/28/03).
According to the resolution, “Enforcement by the Government of the People’s Republic of China of its one-child per family policy has been cruel and inhumane and has included the use of forced abortion and forced sterilization.” The resolution also states that the one-child family policy has led to the abandonment and infanticide of baby girls and a disproportionate number of male children in China. It urges the Chinese government to end its coercive one-child family policy and ensure that no national, provincial, or local government officials subject women to forced abortions or sterilizations.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) listed a number of human rights abuses committed by the Chinese government, including its treatment of Falun Gong practitioners. “This cowardly, dictatorial regime has harassed, imprisoned, and tortured members of the Falun Gong group, sending women, children and men to torture camps for doing nothing but exercising their most basic, fundamental rights of freedom of conscience and belief. This deplorable action by the Chinese authorities has included the brutal torture of followers, particularly women, who have been arrested, gang-raped, and brutally beaten.” She also noted that “trafficking in persons, mainly women and children, for forced prostitution or illegal forced labor continues, placing this segment of the population in constant risk of slavery.”
Stressing the close economic ties China has with the United States, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) argued that Congress has a unique opportunity to promote change in the country. “By working with China, with the explicit goals of improving human rights conditions in that country, we can make China a better, safer country and create a new and stronger relationship between the United States and China. Our demands that China meet internationally accepted levels for human rights will not serve to hinder China’s development, rather it will enable China to flourish,” she stated.
