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Nation to Legislate Population, Family Planning PoliciesBy: Unknown China's commitment to
international conventions has been incorporated into the nation's first
legislation on population and family planning which is expected to receive
its first reading by national legislators next week. "The legislation
will guarantee that individuals enjoy the right to child-bearing as well
as improved reproductive health and
family planning services," said Shi Chunjing, vice-director of the
Regulation Department with the State Family Planning Commission. Shi's commission is
mainly responsible for the drafting of the legislation. Conditions are ripe now
to introduce this legislation, as the idea of family planning and the
importance of reproductive health have
been widely accepted by the public, Shi said. Besides learning from
the nation's own practices of the past few years, the drafters of the
legislation have also introduced some legislative ideas from international
conventions such as stipulations on child-bearing rights, she said. The draft legislation
mirrors China's commitment to the 1994 International Conference on
Population and Development, she added. The conference,
attended by 179 countries, adopted a 20-year Programme of Action that aims
to make reproductive health care,
including family planning, universally available by the year 2015 or
sooner. The programme
emphasizes the link between population and development and recognizes that
the formulation and implementation of population policies are the
responsibility of each country and should take into account the economic,
social, environmental and cultural conditions existent in each country. Family planning is one
of the nation's basic State policies, and guides the sustainable
development of the country and its population of over 1.2 billion. With the implementation
of the policy, China has successfully held back the country's rapidly
increasing tendency towards population growth over the past 30 years, Shi
said. The natural growth rate
of the population has been kept to less than 10 per thousand since 1998. The mainland population
is expected to be within 1.4 billion by the end of 2010 with an annual
birth rate under 15 per thousand, according to figures from Shi's
commission. The State Council will
propose the draft law on population and family planning to the Standing
Committee of the National People's Congress, the nation's top legislative
body, next Tuesday when legislators hold their bimonthly meeting. A draft legislation
usually becomes law after three rounds of deliberation by national
legislators, according to China's Law on Legislative Procedure. |
