By Olivia C, Sam D, and Shelby S.
Narrator: “The Wonton family lives in China where the one child policy is strictly enforced. Xio, the mother of Chewy and Fukcha, accidently had a second son with her husband Mark. The anger that raged inside Xio led her to name the child Fukcha. Xio realizes that China’s policy will be a huge problem for her family.
Xio: Mark, what are we going to do? We are in direct violation of the one child policy. We do not meet any of the exceptions because we are not a rural couple, we are not an ethnic minority, we have siblings, and none of our children have died. Chewy was our first daughter, and we should have been more careful not to have another child. Our family’s life is at stake.
Mark: I understand that Xio. Just thinking of the consequences for having an extra child is terrible. Expensive monthly fines and the prospect of our homes, government benefits, and even jobs being taken away is terrible. As a poor urban family, we are among the many people who probably won’t be able to continue to sustain our lives because of the one child policy.
Xio: Doesn’t China realize that there are millions of families that are devastated by the law?
Mark: Yes, but the government is intending to decrease their total population growth and size. They figured that a law would be the easiest way to reduce population. So far it has been effective, reducing the old population growth average of 1.3 billion by 300 million. The law has also been successful in reducing the growth rate to 1.7, well below the US’s at 2.1. Deng Xiaoping, the creator of the law, had good intentions for the country. China’s current population of 1,325,639,982 is almost a sixth of the entire world and needs to be cut down.
Xio: Even with those positive results, many countries still don’t support the law. One because of families like us who are devastated by the punishments and two, because many people believe that everyone has natural born rights, one of them being to have children.
Narrator: Out of the 6,000,000,000+ people in the world, China’s population makes up for 20.8% of it; meaning that one in every five people are from China. China’s current population exceeds 1.25 billion, and increases every couple of minutes. In order to control this rapid population growth, Deng Xiao Ping established China’s “One Child Policy”. This policy was locally known as the Family Planning Policy, and was initially meant to be temporary, until it was found to be so successful that the government continued to practice the One Child Policy. What this course of action entails is that every family is limited to one child, with exemptions for certain circumstances. For example, some circumstances include: rural couples, ethnic minorities, parents without any siblings, and lastly, parents affected by the unexpected death of a child. With these exceptions, only about 40% of the Chinese population is affected by the latest policy. Unfortunately, Xio and Mark had to abide by this policy and Fukcha does not have an identity.
