A report by Human Rights Watch has revealed the outrageous everyday discrimination that women in China face in the workplace as a result of its population control policies, underwritten by abortion.

The 37-page report studied court proceedings, surveys, social media posts and news reports, revealing the numerous instances of pregnancy discrimination that Chinese women are suffering as a result of decades of population control and forced abortion.

Despite the Chinese state relaxing its notorious one-child, two-child policies, now allowing for up to three children per mother, women in China are set to experience continued discrimination.

Yaqiu Wang, the author of the Human Rights Watch report, said: “By pushing for a higher birth rate without adequate employment protections, the Chinese government has given employers a licence to harass and discriminate.”

Blatant discrimination

In 2016, China changed its one-child policy to legally allow citizens a maximum of 2 children, allowing for maternity leave twice.

Attempting to circumvent up to two potential maternity leaves, Chinese employers have been caught advertising specifically either for men or women who have already had two children.

As a result, women with no children or one child are excluded from many jobs, the Human Rights Watch report has shown.

One job advertisement for a manager at a clothing company in Beijing read: “Age between around 30 and 35, already have children, good looking, and good disposition.”

Little hope of legal justice for women

While the Chinese constitution, in theory, bans pregnancy-based discrimination in employment, there is extraordinarily little enforcement, making it difficult and expensive for victims to address injustices.

When women do take discrimination cases to court, they are unlikely to win due to excessive bureaucratic requirements and unclear legal standards.

One woman from Beijing, who took her employer to court after being fired for being pregnant, said: “I just wanted an explanation, an apology, and fair treatment. The difficulty in defending my rights has been beyond my imagination.”

Change in China

In 2020 there were 12 million births recorded in China, compared to 18 million births just four years before in 2016.

As a result of the demographic crisis that has emerged from the one-child and two-child policies, China’s President Xi Jinping recently approved a policy shift to “allow” married couples to have up to three children.

Michael Robinson, SPUC Director of Communications said: “The Chinese state has no right to ‘allow’ couples to have three children any more than it had the right to tell couples in 1979 that they could have only one child. No state should dictate how many children a couple should have. As Steven Mosher, China scholar and President of the Population Research Institute has said: ‘Forced pregnancy is coming to China sooner than we think.’”

 “China’s totalitarian, anti-child policies – underwritten by abortion – preventing its people from having babies, has conceived a toxic anti-mother culture across the country.

“It has enabled employers to discriminate at will against women, who have shockingly little legal recourse.                                                                      

“The fact that babies have for so long been made the enemy of the Chinese state explains why women face such a hard path in the workplace, even today, as this Human Right Watch report shows.”