The Following extrtracts are taken from the US State Department's 'Country Reports on Human Rights Practices-Released on 8th March 2006.

The country's birth planning policies retained harshly coercive elements in law and practice. The laws restrict the rights of families to choose the number of children they have and the period of time between births. The penalties for violating the law are strict, leaving some women little choice but to abort pregnancies. In addition implementation of the policy by local officials resulted in serious violations of human rights. Reports of forced sterilizations and abortions, in violation of the national law, continued to be documented in rural areas. The law standardizes the implementation of the government's birth limitation policies; however, enforcement varied significantly from place to place. The law grants married couples the right to have one birth and allows eligible couples to apply for permission to have a second child if they meet conditions stipulated in local and provincial regulations. Many provincial regulations require women to wait four years or more after their first birth before making such an application. According to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the spacing requirement was removed in 5 and relaxed in 10 of the 30 counties across 30 provinces participating in UNFPA's "Fifth Country Program." The law requires couples that have an unapproved child to pay a "social compensation fee," which sometimes reached 10 times a person's annual income, and grants preferential treatment to couples who abide by the birth limits. Although the law states that officials should not violate citizens' rights, these rights, as well as penalties for violating them, are not clearly defined. The law provides significant and detailed sanctions for officials who help persons evade the birth limitations. Social compensation fees are set and assessed at the local level. The law requires family planning officials to obtain court approval before taking "forcible" action, such as confiscation of property, against families who refuse to pay social compensation fees. However, in practice this requirement was not always followed. The one-child limit was more strictly applied in the cities, where only couples meeting certain conditions (e.g., both parents are only children) were permitted to have a second child. In most rural areas (including towns of under 200 thousand persons), which included approximately two-thirds of the country's population, the policy was more relaxed, generally allowing couples to have a second child if the first was a girl or had a disability. Central government policy formally prohibits the use of physical coercion to compel persons to submit to abortion or sterilization, although reports of physical coercion to meet birth targets continued. Provinces have responsibility to enforce the law through the implementation of regulations. All provincial-level governments except the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) have amended their regulations to conform to the new law. For example, Anhui Province passed a law permitting 13 categories of couples, including coal miners, some remarried divorcees, and some farm couples, to have a second child. Ethnic minorities like the Uighurs and the Tibetans are also allowed more than one child. Seven provinces--Anhui, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Hubei, Hunan, Jilin and Ningxia--require "termination of pregnancy" if the pregnancy violates provincial family planning regulations. An additional 10 provinces--Fujian, Guizhou, Guangdong, Gansu, Jiangxi, Qinghai, Sichuan, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Yunnan--require unspecified "remedial measures" to deal with out-of-plan pregnancies. In order to delay childbearing, the law sets the minimum marriage age for women at 20 years and for men at 22 years. It continued to be illegal in almost all provinces for a single woman to have a child. Social compensation fees have been levied on unwed mothers. The country's population control policy relied on education, propaganda, and economic incentives, as well as on more coercive measures such as the threat of job loss or demotion and social compensation fees. Psychological and economic pressures were very common. According to provincial regulations, the fees ranged from one-half to 10 times the average worker's annual disposable income. Those who violated the child limit policy by having an unapproved child or helping another to do so faced disciplinary measures such as job loss or demotion, loss of promotion opportunity, expulsion from the party (membership in which was an unofficial requirement for certain jobs), and other administrative punishments, including in some cases the destruction of property. In the case of families that already had two children, one parent was often pressured to undergo sterilization. These penalties sometimes left women with little practical choice but to undergo abortion or sterilization. There were several rewards for couples who adhered to birth limitation laws and policies, including monthly stipends and preferential medical and educational benefits. The National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC) expanded a number of programs to encourage smaller families. For example, new pension benefits were made available nationwide for those who adhered to birth limitation laws. The law states that Family Planning Bureaus will conduct pregnancy tests on married women and provide them with unspecified "follow-up" services. Some provincial regulations provide for fines if women do not undergo periodic pregnancy tests. For example, in Hebei the range was $25 to $62 (RMB 200 to 500), and in Henan it was $6 to $62 (RMB 50 to 500). Officials at all levels remained subject to rewards or penalties based on meeting the population goals set by their administrative region. There continued to be sporadic reports of violations of citizens' rights by local officials attempting to reduce the number of births in their region. The most egregious reports occurred in Linyi, Shandong Province. International press reports alleged that some 130 thousand persons were detained by local officials in "population schools" to force them or their relatives to submit to abortions or sterilization procedures. Local officials profited from this illegal system by charging fees, according to media reports. At least seven thousand people were forcibly sterilized. Local rights activists documented several cases of forced late-term abortions. According to law, citizens may sue officials who exceed their authority in implementing birth-planning policy. Legal activist Chen Guangcheng remained under investigation and house arrest as a result of his work exposing the abuses in Linyi (see section 1.e.). Use of population schools as detention centers was reported in 2004 in Anhui Province. A subsequent NPFPC investigation revealed that local officials in Linyi had violated the law. Some officials were removed from office. The NPFPC announced it would take steps to enhance the rule of law and safeguard the rights of citizens. However, promotions for local officials still depended in part on meeting population targets. Laws and regulations forbid the termination of pregnancies based on the sex of the fetus, but because of the intersection of birth limitations with the traditional preference for male children, particularly in rural areas, many families used ultrasound technology to identify female fetuses and terminate these pregnancies (see section 5). The most recent official figures put the overall male to female sex ratio at birth at 116.9 to 100 (compared with the statistical norm of 106 to 100), and in some parts of the country, the ratio was even more skewed. For second births, the national ratio was 151.9 to 100. During the year the NPFPC expanded programs to raise awareness of the sex ratio imbalance and to improve protection of the rights of girls.

To be a planned birth officer is to take on a role of great pressure. Should an officer allow mothers to exceed the birth quotas of a town, the legal consequences would befall the officer. The Chinese government is far more concerned with the results than the methods a local officer may take to achieve them. In that sense, a birth control officer's job is somewhat open-ended. While detainment of family members and dismantling of homes may not be included in official doctrine, there is very little to prevent local officers from resorting to those practices to save their own jobs. I know very little about the UNFPA, but I do know that any organization that is contributing to China's population control policy is encouraging these officials to implement forced abortion, sterilization, and punishments ranging from detainment to house destruction as means of enforcement. I learned that this is an unacceptable way to live as a human being, and I can only hope that China soon realizes this as well.