United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) executive director Babatunde Osotimehin (thejakartapost.com/Elly Burhaini Faizal)

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has welcomed the Chinese government'€™s recent announcement that couples across the country may have two children, thereby moving away from the so-called "one-child policy" that was introduced more than three decades ago.

The UNFPA also welcomed the Chinese government'€™s proposed strengthening and improving of public services including reproductive health, maternal and child health care as well as nursery services.

UNFPA executive director Babatunde Osotimehin said it was hoped that these steps would lead to the fulfillment of the basic right of all couples and individuals in China to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children, a principle agreed on by all countries in the Program of Action adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994.

"We, at UNFPA, are committed to working with the Chinese government to advance and strengthen the sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights of all Chinese people, especially those of women and young people," said Osotimehin in a statement on Saturday.

China said on Thursday it would allow all married couples to have two children, signaling the end after 35 years of its drastic and unpopular "one-child" policy, which has been blamed for skewing the gender balance, forcing women into unwanted abortions and bringing about a rapidly aging workforce, Associated Press (AP) reported.

The decision was the most significant easing of strict population policies that were long considered some of the ruling Communist Party's most onerous intrusions into family life and had been gradually relaxed in recent years. Many rural families and some urban ones already were able to have two children.

China, which has the world's largest population at 1.4 billion people, introduced the one-child policy in 1979 as a temporary measure to curb a then-surging population and limit the demands for water and other resources. Soon after it was implemented, rural couples were allowed two children if their firstborn was a girl. Ethnic minorities are also allowed more than one child, AP wrote.

Chinese families with a strong preference for boys have sometimes resorted to aborting female fetuses, a practice that has upset the ratio of male to female babies. China has rates of up to 115 boys per 100 girls at birth '€” compared with what are considered normal rates at birth of about 107 boys to 100 girls.

The imbalance makes it difficult for some men to find wives, and is believed to fuel the trafficking of women as brides.

Couples who broke the rules have been forced to pay a fee in proportion to their income. In some cases, rural families saw their livelihood in the form of their pigs and chickens taken away.

Couples have at times been pressured to consent to abortions or sterilization by local family planning officials, or threatened with the loss of their jobs if they work as teachers or in other public sector jobs, AP reported.(ebf)

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