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Cadres use pregnancy check to oppress single wome
Date: 5/25/2007 9:49:17 AM Sender: TianWang
Headline: Cadres use pregnancy check to oppress single women: villagers

Author:Minnie C… Source:SCMP.com

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Officials in Yongzhou, Hunan province, forced unmarried women to have "pregnancy checks" and made the tests compulsory for any female seeking a share of community land-sale revenues and voting rights, villagers said.

Wang Yanli , 29, a resident of Wutong in the city's Lengshuitan district, said local committee party secretary Peng Chunsheng and his subordinates ruled in 1999 that all unmarried women had to have check-ups to determine if they had ever been pregnant, and if they had, the women should be expelled from the community.

"That means women who failed the checks lost the rights to a share of land sale income and to vote in committee elections," Ms Wang said. "I was forced to undergo a series of medical tests in 1999, including an ultrasound, a uterus check and a breast exam."

Ms Wang was 21 at the time of the tests and said the examinations were carried out at a birth control office in the neighbouring Phoenix Garden district.

"One staff member conducted the check-up while Peng's wife Wang Meiying , one of the committee cadres, stood near me to monitor the examination," she said. "I remember the staff member put a medical instrument inside me and it was very painful."

Ms Wang said Mr Peng even demanded her younger sister Wang Meiyan , who was only 16, have the checks but was stopped by a birth control official.

"The official said it was illegal to do such tests on unmarried girls," she said. "He reminded me that everything Peng and his subordinates did was illegal."

In October 2004, when the committee was ready to distribute revenue from a second round of community land sales, Mr Peng and his cadres again ordered all unmarried women to have the tests. But Ms Wang and her sister refused to comply.

"We refused because it was a humiliation rather than a check-up," she said. "This time, the examination wasn't conducted by birth control staff, but married women from our committee.

"Everyone had to be naked before the women and let them check our private parts one by one."

The Wangs' refusal to submit to the checks resulted in them losing out on 11,900 yuan each from the land sales, and their right to vote in elections for committee leaders.

They have been petitioning municipal, provincial and central governments for redress since then.

In the beginning, they were encouraged by feedback from higher authorities - the provincial government and All-China Women's Federation director Huang Qingyi instructed the Yongzhou government to solve the sisters' case.

"But all the instructions have fallen on deaf ears," Ms Wang said. "Local officials didn't pay attention to the instructions at all."

Wutong residential committee office director Tang Pingping confirmed it had received instructions from a higher-up about the Wang sisters' case, but said: "It's very difficult to solve the problem.

"I know their appeals are reasonable, but it's not proper to complain to Beijing because it embarrassed our party secretary. It makes both sides very uncomfortable because a problem was stirred up."

He also recognised that local officials had abused the birth-control policy when apportioning the land sale bonuses, but said the Wang sisters were the only two unmarried women who had dared to oppose Mr Peng's order.

Ms Wang has visited Beijing at least six times over the past three years to push her case, and said she was forced to close down a costume jewellery shop because officials pressured the proprietor not to renew the lease.

In 2005 provincial government influence forced officials to pay the Wang sisters 11,900 yuan, or half of the first land sale bonus, but the same amount remains outstanding.

"Peng and his subordinates even made reprisals against my relatives because of our petitions to Beijing," she said.

"They subtracted 6,000 yuan from my parents' land sale bonus and rejected land allocations to my sister-in-law and her son.

"Local cadres even said it was useless to petition to Beijing because local officials have absolute power to decide whether to implement instructions from upper levels or not."

Human rights activist Huang Qisaid the abuse of power was the result of a lack of oversight in the Communist Party's bureaucracy.

"Local officials all get used to helping one another because they share the same interests," Mr Huang said. "Under such conditions, new policies from Beijing - especially national policies, such as birth control - only provide more chances for local governments to seek gains."



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