Chinas Population Planning Has Nasty Kick Back Effect

China’s thirty year old one-child policy has led to a traditional preference for boys, as boys were more thought to be more useful on the farm, able to take care of the parents when they are old and eligible to receive an inheritance. "It doesn’t matter how much money you have. If you don’t have a son, you are not as good as other people who have one", one 38 year-old China man said.

Girl children, who are unwanted, are frequently abandoned or disposed of. Forced abortion and sterilization became the normal way of life.

Approximately 800,000 girl babies were abandoned or killed, in just one region, in the years from 1971-80 alone. These figures then need to be multiplied by a further two generations and a dozen or more other regions, escalating the figure of missing girls to the tens of millions. The population control is said to have reduced the population growth by 250 million, but it comes at a very high price.

China now has one of the largest male-to-female ratios in the world. The 2005 census discovered a surplus of 32 million males under the age of 25. That’s almost the entire population of Canada.

This has now caused intense competition for the single females that are available, particularly in rural areas, where being unmarried after 24, is looked upon as being a thing of shame. The situation has created a severe hike in bridal prices. This in turn created a phenomenon known as the ‘Runaway Brides’, or ‘Bride Scam’, which is reported as being part of a larger criminal ring.

Prospective brides turn to visit friends, in mainly rural areas where there are no single females. The girls go through the process of agreeing to get married and accepting the bridal dowry, which can be as high as 38,000 yuan, (around $5,500), or almost five years earnings from a farm.

The girls’ residential papers and identity usually check out. Within only days a marriage union can be registered at the local registrar’s office. Then there is a wedding banquet, where the groom’s mother formally hands over the bride price. The money is frequently borrowed and scraped up from other members of the family.

The new bride settles into residence with the in-laws and it would seem as if ‘happy families’ are about to start. In a very short while however, the bride suddenly disappears – taking the money. Often times several ‘brides’ become available in one region, only to all disappear together – with their dowries, leaving the briefly wed grooms to pine away, in their loveless rural life.

Girls as young as ten years of age are trafficked across the neighboring Burmese border into China, as child brides. Frequently the girls have been sold, into their uncertain future, by either their brother, or father.