China bans selective abortion to fix imbalance Agencies Updated: Newly-married couples receive gifts during the May 21 launch ceremony for the "Care for Girls" project.
Jointly launched by the Beijing Population and Family Planning Commission and the local government of Beijing's Changping District, the project is aimed at promoting equality between girls and boys among parents-to-be and create a favourable enviroment for girls' personal development. A normal newborn sex ratio is boys for girls. Senior family planning official Zhao Baige said the government plans to reverse the imbalance by by banning sex-selective abortion and launching campaigns to end the tradition of valuing boys more than girls.
Zhao blamed the imbalance on the traditional preference for boys, which remains strong in the countryside despite campaigns emphasising sex equality, and a poor rural social security system which forces people to become dependent on their children in old age.
Zhao's commission is undertaking a national "Care for Girls" project to educate people to give up their traditional preference for male children.
The pilot project is expected to be spread to all of China next year. This project will also help China to set up a comprehensive social assurance system for helping one-child families better look after parents in an aging society. According to statistics in , China has In Chinese rural areas, the majority of the old parents still depend on support from their children instead of an unestablished national social assurance system.
