Campaign set up to fix gender ratio

Campaign set up to fix gender ratio

CHINA kicked off a nationwide campaign

to significantly curb

non-medical sex

determinations and sex-selective

abortions to balance the gender ratio,

according to a working conference held

yesterday.

The campaign was jointly launched by

the National Population and Family

Planning Commission, Ministry of Health,

Ministry of Public Security, All China

Women's Federation, State Food and

Drug Administration, and People's

Liberation Army General Logistics

Department.

The conference was also held to mobilize local governments, as it was video-conferenced in 1,125 counties across the nation.

During the eight-month campaign from August 2011 to March 2012, efforts will be made to raise awareness of gender equality. Those involved in sex-selective abortions and cases where ultrasounds are used to determine a fetus' gender for non-medical reasons will be severely punished.

Doctors who violate the ban will be stripped of licenses or penalized, and medical institutions will also be penalized, said Liu Qian, vice minister of the Ministry of Health.

China's gender ratio was at a relatively high level of 118.08 males for every 100 females in 2010, according to census data.

Li Bin, minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said non-medical sex determinations and sex-selective abortions were the main causes of the imbalance.

"We must be sober-minded that the sex ratio at birth is still at a relatively high level," Li said, adding that if the trend continues it will jeopardize gender equality, the development of girls, the rights of women and the nation's long-term development.

Li called for great efforts to be made in clamping down on illegal sex determination and sex-selective abortions, while strengthening monitoring.

The country has implemented family planning policies for about three decades that have restricted urban couples to just one child, while ethnic minority families are permitted to have more children.

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