Exploring China's One-Child Policy

Brut America

China's one-child policy didn't happen overnight — it was normalized through propaganda, and serves as a warning against countries trying to control reproductive rights.

Transcript

00:00In an effort to protect its people from starvation, China has enacted a policy limiting families

00:05to just one child.

00:16I was born in China in 1985, a time when China's population crisis was making headlines around

00:23the world.

00:36If women gave birth to their first child within a month, they would be forced to have a sterilization.

00:42And if women were caught to have a second child during the pregnancy, they would be

00:48forced to have an abortion.

00:51However, at some point, when the government realized that they could actually make profit

00:56through the international adoption program, they allowed the women to carry the baby for

01:01term, gave birth, and then would take the baby away and put it into the orphanage.

01:10I never even questioned why the policy was there and whether it was necessary or what

01:23consequences it had.

01:25It just became part of a normal life.

01:27So it was only until later when I moved to the US and I became a mother myself, it made

01:35me question what it must be like for women who lived under the policy and couldn't protect

01:42their child, didn't know what would happen when they were pregnant.

01:46That's when I started having a lot of questions.

02:05There were a lot of interviews that felt really difficult emotionally, especially because

02:19these were people who were talking about their children died or their pregnancy being terminated.

02:30For example, one midwife who was 84 years old, she told me that she's performed 50,000

02:38and 60,000 abortions and sterilizations, and she still feels guilt to this day.

02:48She told me how sometimes a late-term baby would be born alive and she would have to

02:53kill the baby alive.

02:55Those moments were extremely difficult to even listen to.

02:59I really learned a lot about propaganda.

03:01It's something that I was really familiar with because I lived in the environment, but

03:08I never paid attention to the songs, the movies, the books, the cartoons, the drawings, the

03:14paintings.

03:15All of those were designed to shape our minds and tell us how to think.

03:23In a society that is freer than China, it could be even more difficult to recognize

03:30propaganda because they exist in a more subtle way in the TV reports, in social media feeds,

03:37in political campaigns.

03:39We hope that this film would remind people to examine the messages around them.

03:44We also hope that the film could show people what would happen when a government takes

03:49away the choice from women, especially women's reproductive rights.

03:55And that's something also not unique in China.

03:58It's happening here in the U.S. too, as the governments restrict access to abortion and

04:05trying to control women's own reproductive rights.

Category

Transcript

Recommended