The Perils of Indifference: Critical Essay

Everyone is born with these things called Human Rights. These are the laws that say you have the right to certain things that everyone should be able to have. There are thirty of them. I’m not saying people should know all of them but I'm saying that everyone should know a few of them. These are the rights that belong to the human race. Even though everyone is supposed to have these Human Rights, there are still places that don’t acknowledge them. In a famous speech called “The Perils of Indifference,” holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel talks about the fact that people should not remain indifferent when they hear about other people who are suffering. He explains that “Indifference, then, is not only a sin, but it also is a punishment. And this is one of the most important lessons of this outgoing century's wide-ranging experiments in good and evil.” (Weisel 2). By saying this, Weisel is telling his listeners that when people turn their back on people who are suffering it is a sin but it is punishing the people who are suffering. Even if you don’t know the people who are suffering you should still help them no matter what they are going through. The people in the holocaust were suffering behind the big black gates and no one seemed to look and ask what was behind those gates. Everyone should always be curious and not look away from the people who are in pain and suffering. This will always be a thing even in the world we live in today. People way too often turn their back on people who are suffering and in pain. When and if people see someone who is in pain and suffering take a stand and protect the people who are being mistreated in the world and try to help them to the best of everyone's abilities.

One way Human Rights are being violated is China’s two Child policy. This is violating a few human rights an example is in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 16 you have the right to marry who you want and have as many kids as you would like. (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) The history of China’s two-child policy is not amazing because it Started as a one-child policy in 1979. If Chinese Citizens did decide to have a second child they would get fined. In the rural areas of China, women could have 2 kids if the first was born a girl (BBC). When the Chinese work from age 25 through 59. 30% of the Chinese population is elderly with the population being 1.36 billion people. ( Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

With China’s One Child Policy, there were many places where Chinese officials do a thing called sterilization. Which is a procedure to make women not able to have kids. Chinese officials often come and take pregnant women out of their houses and if women are pregnant with their second child no matter how far along women are they can force women to have an abortion. The procedures are usually done by untrained people which could lead to many side effects. There are many stories people have told about the offices coming into people's houses and doing those things, but the way people were treated was so terrible. In a rural area of China a girl told her story, “' When my mother had my little brother, we were fined. We had no money so they took away the things in our home - our television set, our benches, and even our food. After that, there was still forced sterilization, and now she has a disease. Who will take responsibility for this?' said Wannengjunren. (BBC). If the people didn’t have enough money they would have their things taken away and be starved by taking away their food. When women went to the hospital to other have forced abortions or go through sterilization the women would often be beaten and starved with no food or water. The officials would sneak around in the middle of the night and try to catch people hiding their other children if they had any. In an article from the BBC, the woman told us her story about the night raids. “I can remember how officials would come in the middle of the night to catch people, everyone in my village would wrap up in their blankets and run to the cemetery at a nearby hill to spend the night” (BBC).

When Chinese officials would sanitize women they would force them to basically not be able to have kids anymore. And the newer generations are too young to carry kids. So when China ended its one-child policy the birth rate was still going down. In China, men outnumber Women by 30 million. The one-child policy was introduced in 1979, after three decades of political-economic turmoil, in hopes that smaller families would help China deal with the extreme poverty the nation faced. In 1980, the policy was given teeth as Communist Party members were directed to have only one child, and in 1982 it was made universal and enshrined in the constitution. By 2014, however, facing demographic shortfalls, the Chinese government started to relax the policies, allowing families to have two children if one of the parents was an only child. (time)

Current State of the Issue

In the past, There have been protests against China’s one-child policy. On April 18, 2016, more than 2,000 grieving parents that have lost their kids with the one-child policy. In Bejing all of the parents and family wore white caps which were a symbol for the grieving parents who also carried around pictures of their deceased children. Now that the one-child policy was over there have been fewer protests and more love around China. On the darker side of things, there are shady adoptions and very little has been done to stop them.

In China, agencies will kidnap children and let American people adopt them. While we don't yet know the scale of China's stolen-children problem, let alone understand its implications for the adoptive parents and prospective adoptive parents of Chinese-born children in the U.S. and around the world, it's been life-altering, even traumatic, for the families it's touched directly.

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Children that have been taken from their families are being sold for a very steep amount of money. (Newsweek). On CNN there are stories about women who have had shady adoption agencies. --“an adoptive mother in the United States who discovered her daughter's adoption papers were forged and a Chinese father whose baby was taken from him.”(CNN) Chinese police officers stopped their search after 2 days. When a little girl was stolen and sent to a different country where she doesn't know anything. (Newsweek)

In recent years, the theory of children being kidnapped and put up for adoption has been increasingly challenged. 'The more we look at the data, the more we realize the hidden children, they are not there,' says Yong Cai, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 'They have never been born or they have simply been aborted.' While some do conceal their children or abandon them, sex-selective abortion and poor health care for baby girls account for most of the sex ratio disparity for very young children, which now stands at about 120 males for every 100 females.” (CNN)

Helpers and activism

As of 2015, China ad changed its one-child policy to a two-child policy. When the policy was changed it sparked an increase in birth rates. A total of 17.86 million babies were born in 2016, an increase of 1.31 million over the total in 2015. (BBC) China had loosened its one-child policy in recent years, and the program was officially expanded to a two-child policy as of the start of 2016. In a little more than 10 years, one-quarter of the world’s most populous countries will be 60 or older. About 30% of the population is now over the age of 50 - a demographic time bomb that holds up a terrifying specter of rising social costs and falling worker numbers to a wider country that is only just a little way behind. (BBC)

As of this year, China is planning to scrap the two-child policy completely. With birth rates continuing to plummet they are wanting to scrap it completely. In 2017, 630,000 fewer babies were born than in the previous year, a trend that could be driven by concerns over the cost and logistics of raising children. (Business Insider) In China's annual meeting, they talked about changing their two-child policy to a potential 3 child policy. While still keeping their Family planning department. (Francis)

While family planning policies may still exist, for the first time since 1981, 'family planning' will not appear in the name of any government department. This could indicate a large shift away from the government placing importance on birth limits in the country. (Francis)

In this whole paper, you were reading how China was not letting people have more than 2 kids. While you were reading this paper I hope you were getting moved somehow in a way where you would want to help. In Elie Wiesel's Speech the Perils of Indifference there is a quote “Indifference, then, is not only a sin, but it is also a punishment. And this is one of the most important lessons of this outgoing century's wide-ranging experiments in good and evil.” (Wiesel 2). It seems like no one is talking about this in the world today. You are allowing innocent kids to get killed if there are more than two kids in their family, or even getting adopted illegally. You are sinning while letting kids get punished for something they had no control over.

So hopefully by now, you are asking, “Wow how can I help these kids that are in China?”Well, let me tell you how you can help. Christianpost.com is a website where you can find different places where you can donate and learn how to help with trying to get rid of the laws. When you want to donate you can go onto the website and fill out the information and it will give you different things to donate to. Some of the things are donating like 10 dollars a month to help a fostered child from China get everything they need. Nypost.com is a place where you can go to buy a shirt to let the law get rid of China’s law altogether. When you go donate at this site you are given a choice of different things to donate.

Works Cited

1. Berenson, Tessa “ Here's How China's One-Child Policy Started in the First Place” birth rates continue to plummet” Business Insider 12/3/19
2. How to help Nypost.com August 17, 2016 web April 4, 2018
3. Levenson Eric “China's new two-child policy sparks increase in births’ CNN.com. 23 January, 18 Web 27 March 18
4. Time.com 29, October 2015 Web 12, March 2018
5. Sudworth John “The 'model' example of China's one-child policy”. BBC, 30 October,15, web, 27 March, 18
6. Sudworth John “The 'model' example of China's one-child policy”. BBC, 30 October,15, web, 27 March, 18
7. Ziv Stav “China’s One-Child policy and American Adoptees” http://www.newsweek.com/ 11 March 2015 web. 27 March, 18