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The National Family Planning Program of China 1995-2000 |
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State Family Planning Commission Source: State Family Planning Commission Subject: family planning
Text:
The following program is formulated with a view to achieving the objectives of China's socialist modernization drive and promoting the sustained and sound development of China's family planning endeavor. I. Current Population Situation (1) It has been China's basic national policy to promote family planning, curb population growth and improve the health and education standards of its people. Over the past two decades, especially since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in 1978, significant achievements have been made in this endeavor along with the development of China's economy.
These achievements are attributed to the active participation of the masses and joint efforts of family planning cadres and workers at the grassroots level under the guidance of the Party and Government from the center down to the various local levels. (2) However, it should be noted that we cannot afford to rest optimistic about China's population situation. The tasks for promoting family planning remain arduous. The following facts give a whole picture of the current situation of population and family planning in China:
II. Primary Tasks, Major Objectives and Working Principles (3) In line with the overall plan laid down by the Party and Government for China's socialist modernization drive, the primary tasks for China's family planning program in the 1995-2000 period include:
(4) The major objectives for family planning include:
While imposing strict controls over population growth to keep the population to a reasonable size, we should strive for a marked improvement in people's health and education standards and establish, step by step, a population and family planning working mechanism that has Chinese characteristics and meets the needs of a socialist market economy. (5) To fulfill the above primary tasks and major objectives, we should apply our successful experiences and make constant improvements in our future work by freeing ourselves from obsolete conventions and seeking truth from facts. We should adhere to the following principles in our work:
III. Stabilize Current Family Planning Polices in Effect and (6) Continued efforts should be made to implement the current family planning policies in effect in an all-encompassing way to prevent early marriages, early births, and reduce unwanted pregnancies and births. Family planning should also be promoted in areas inhabited by ethnic minorities so as to promote the economic and social development in those areas and improve the quality of life of the minority people there. (7) Continued efforts should be made to improve local legislation on family planning and work out relevant statutes and regulations. Initial preparatory work for the drafting of the Family Planning Law of the People's Republic of China should be carried out in real earnest and recommendations be made on legislation regarding population and family planning to provide a legal guarantee for the promotion of family planning. Serious efforts should be made to improve publicity and education regarding the legal system so that officials and the masses will be able to exercise their rights and perform their duties in family planning as stipulated in the Constitution and in the relevant laws and regulations. Family planning personnel at various levels should be urged to serve the people wholeheartedly. Efforts should be made to improve the enforcement of family planning regulations and strengthen its supervision. Family planning personnel are required to perform their duties in accordance with the law and ensure that laws are enforced in a just and civilized way and that the legitimate rights and interests of the people are protected. Any infringement of these laws and disciplines will be dealt with seriously and any criminal activities undermining family planning severely cracked down on. (8) Research on population science should be strengthened. The China Population Association should act as a medium for bring together all population scientists to conduct scientific research on population and family planning and offer advice and suggestions for implementing the basic national policy of family planning and finding solutions to China's population problems.
IV. Give Top Priority to Education and Publicity and Help Effect Changes in the People's Concept of Childbearing (9) Vigorous efforts should be made to develop educational undertakings. Relevant laws and regulations should be conscientiously implemented. These include: The Law of the People's Republic of China on Nine-Year Compulsory Education, Regulation on the Eradication of Illiteracy, the National Educational Reform and Development Program of China and the Program for the Implementation of Patriotism in Education. We should enhance people's command of science and general knowledge and improve their ideological and ethical qualities. Special emphasis should be put on improving the standard of women's education so as to facilitate changes in their concepts of marriage and childbearing. (10) Nation-wide publicity and education campaigns on population and family planning should be carried out on a long-term basis and in a thorough way. Efforts should be made to enhance people's awareness of population issues and guide them toward a more civilized, advanced and scientific concept of marriage and childbearing. Governments at all levels should coordinate with the departments concerned and mobilize all social sectors into publicity campaigns to disseminate via such means as radio, and television, films, newspapers, magazines and art performances, information on China's population situation and its basic national policy of family planning, and on the necessity that population growth must coordinate with economic and social development and with the environment and resources. Efforts should be made to help popularize among people of childbearing age, scientific knowledge of reproductive health, contraception and fertility regulation and of maternal and child care, as well as healthier births and healthier childbearing, and to advocate later marriages and later childbearing, fewer and healthier births. The idea that male and female babies are equally desirable and the virtue of respecting elders and protecting the young should be encouraged. Efforts should be made to protect the legitimate rights and interests of women and children and to commend those who have conscientiously done well in family planning. The broad masses should be advised to handle correctly the relationships between their long-term and immediate interests and between the interests of the nation and those of the individual family. Vigorous efforts should be made to bring about a boom in literary and artistic creativity to publicize population issues. Writers and artists should be encouraged to produce more and better works depicting population and family planning issues. Efforts should also be made to improve the supervision of literary and artistic creativity and the publication of books and audio-visual products. (11) Publicity and education should be geared to grassroots units and the masses, and should be integrated with the efforts to promote a socialist set of ethics and culture. Emphasis should be put on serving a clearly-defined purpose and achieving tangible results. Civilized units should be established. Campaigns should be launched to draw women into mass activities aimed at acquiring literacy and production skills and emulating one another in achievements and contributions so that a community environment favorable to family planning will gradually be formed. Face-to-face communication and counseling, patient and careful persuasion and publicity should be extended into households. To meet the people's need for more knowledge and a more prosperous life, information, education and communication on family planning should be integrated with the efforts to popularize science and culture, spread information on income-generating projects, improve hygiene and health care, enrich people's cultural activities during their spare time and promote social welfare and security. In this way, information, education and communication are combined with rendering services. Party schools, cadre schools, Youth League schools and adult schools in rural areas at various levels and universities, as well as colleges and middle schools should incorporate knowledge on population and family planning into their curricula. Education on China's population situation and on adolescence health should be offered in related courses in middle schools and in senior classes of primary schools in rural areas. (12) Greater efforts should be made to develop family planning publicity networks. The initiatives of various family planning publicity and education centers should be brought into full play. Publicity materials that suit the needs of grassroots, either in written, drawn or audio-visual forms, should be maximized so that family planning publicity materials are made available to every village and every household. County family planning service stations or publicity stations should be manned and supervised by full-time staff members and equipped with necessary facilities to conduct publicity and training in a well-planned way. In places where the necessary conditions are available, population schools at the township level and publicity offices in villages should be established to conduct publicity and training among family planning personnel at the grassroots level and among couples of childbearing age. By the year 2000, feature programs on population and family planning should be broadcasted on all radio and television stations at the provincial level and 85 percent of radio stations at the prefecture and county levels and 70 percent of television stations at the prefecture level.
V. Improve Family Planning at the Grassroots Level (13) Improving family planning at the grassroots level constitutes an essential guarantee for the effective implementation of family planning policies and one of the major measures in implementing the policy of "three priorities". Leaders at all levels must attach great importance to this endeavor and work in a down-to-earth manner to ensure the success of family planning at the grassroots level. Family planning should also be integrated with economic development and the promotion of material, ethical and cultural progress in communities. (14) The establishment of family planning organizations at the township and village levels, particularly in the latter, has been the key to the success of family planning in rural areas. Efforts should be made to inspire these organizations to assume their responsibilities and play an effective role. Members of the Communist Party, Communist Youth League, revolutionary army men, cadres, and leading cadres at various levels in particular, should take the lead in observing and implementing the relevant policies and regulations on family planning, urge their children and relatives to practice family planning and actively participate in publicity work. The Party discipline inspection departments and government supervisory departments must deal seriously with officials who violate family planning policies and regulations. (15) A contingent of family planning workers at the grassroots level should be formed that is sufficient in number and professionally competent for the job. Neighborhood committees in urban areas and villagers' committees and groups in rural areas should have part-time family planning workers and ensure that these people have clearly defined tasks and are duly paid. The roles of the family planning association and other mass organizations should be brought into full play so that they can help motivate people to conduct self-education, self-management and self-services, rendering practical services for the people and doing them good turns. In this way more people will be drawn into the family planning endeavor. (16) Local authorities should draw up plans and work conscientiously to help grassroots units implement in real earnest the principle of "three priorities" in family planning work, improve basic services and gradually accomplish a more standardized management. In rural areas campaigns should be launched in line with local conditions, to establish villages that have come up to family planning standards. The campaign can be integrated with activities to create "better-off villages" and "more civilized villages". In urban areas, efforts should be made to study and solve problems that have arisen in new situations and to steadily improve family planning. (17) The Regulations on Family Planning Management of the Floating Population should be conscientiously implemented. Local authorities at the places of entry of the floating population and those at the places of its permanent residence should coordinate their efforts. The departments of family planning, residence registration, labor, industrial and commercial administration, urban construction, public security, associations of self-employed laborers and other organizations should cooperate closely with one another while assuming their respective responsibilities in a joint effort for more effective management of family planning among the floating population.
VI. Develop Science and Technology for Family Planning and Reproductive Health and Improve the Quality of Technical Services (18) Continued efforts should be made to improve the overall arrangement for scientific research on family planning and reinforce the key laboratories at the national and ministerial levels so that they will gradually attain the advanced international levels . We should make the best use of the strengths of family planning research institutions in various regions and departments and form a scientific research network for family planning which is suited to China's specific conditions. (19) In line with China's actual needs, applied research on contraception and fertility regulation should be carried out vigorously. Meanwhile, attention should be paid to basic research and research on healthier births. Efforts should be made to improve the existing techniques for contraception and fertility regulation and develop new means and methods for this end. We should study and explore the use of traditional Chinese medicine in birth control and strengthen basic research on human reproduction theories, carry out epidemiological and sociological studies on reproductive health and research on the reduction of birth defects and the prevention of hereditary diseases. International technical cooperation and exchanges should be expanded and efforts made to introduce and utilize new technologies and results of scientific research from other countries. (20) Attention should be paid to the commercialization of scientific and technological achievements and put them into production. Greater efforts should be made to popularize new technology and collect, process and disseminate information and data on the progress of science and technology. Technical services for family planning should be strengthened and improved. Efforts should be made to ensure that every person in need of contraception will manage to learn one of the modern methods that is both safe and effective. (21) Technical service institutions for family planning at the grassroots level should be reinforced and their role brought into full play. The equipment, personnel, structure and management procedure of health and family planning technical service institutions at the county and township levels should conform with the standards, Pre-pregnancy services should be promoted and encouraged and proper guidance offered to different categories of people of childbearing age. Technical services for contraception should be provided before pregnancies so as to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Technical counseling and services promoting healthier births and healthier childbearing should be offered to the masses. (22) Scientific research and technical service management of family planning should be strengthened. Family planning commissions at the province (autonomous region and municipality), prefecture (municipality) and county levels should be staffed with leaders and managerial personnel well versed in science and technology. (23) Governments and other relevant authorities should gradually increase their financial input to scientific research and technical services for family planning to meet the needs for institutional development. Meanwhile, they should explore more channels for fund-raising to boost development of science and technology in the fields of family planning.
VII. Strengthen and Improve Management of the (24) The Provisional Regulations Governing the Management of Population Plans and the Regulations for the Implementation of Population Plans at the Grassroots Level (for trial use) should be conscientiously implemented. Local authorities should proceed from the local conditions and work out in a scientific and rational way their own population plans in accordance with the population plan set by the Central Government. Population plans should be made known to the public so as to subject them to people's supervision. (25) The Law of the People's Republic of China on Statistics and the Rules for the Implementation of Family Planning Statistics should be implemented in real earnest. A stronger contingent of statistics workers should be formed and effective measures adopted to ensure the quality of population and family planning statistics. Attempts to withhold, underreport or distort statistical data arc strictly forbidden. The evaluation of statistical data should be strengthened and efforts made to ensure the success of the comprehensive analysis of statistical data and other relevant information. The role of statistics in providing information, counseling and supervision should be brought into full play. (26) A national family planning management information system should be gradually established to improve family planning management and services. By the year 2000 departments in charge of family planning above the county level should have set up networks for family planning information dissemination and computer-aided management of information on women of childbearing age and family planning work should have materialized in most of the counties.
VIII. Increase Investment and Ensure Material Support (27) Financial departments at various levels should ensure the necessary funds for family planning endeavors. By the end of the Eighth Five-Year Plan period (1990-1995) local governments at various levels should raise the annual funds for family planning to 2 yuan per capita. During the Ninth Five-Year Plan period (1995-2000) local governments should continue to increase their input into family planning. A proportion of township public welfare funds should be earmarked for family planning. Efforts should be made to enlist financial assistance from the United Nations and other international organizations. (28) Family planning funds should be well-managed and properly used. More financial assistance should be given to family planning in former revolutionary base areas, minority-inhabited areas, border and impoverished areas. The Rules for the Management of Social Welfare Fees should be conscientiously implemented to ensure that these fees are reasonably charged, well managed and properly used and ensure that they are used entirely for family planning endeavors. (29) Family planning service networks should be set up at a greater speed. Planning departments at all levels should incorporate family planning capital construction into the national plan for capital construction. By the end of the Eighth Five-Year Plan period family planning service stations should be set up in most of the counties and suburban areas of cities throughout the country and efforts should be made to consolidate and improve them to bring them closer to perfection during the Ninth Five-Year Plan period. Family planning service stations or rooms at the township and village levels should be set up in line with the local conditions. As for the existing family planning service institutions, efforts should be made to improve the quality of their staff and their services, and to work out relevant rules and regulations so as to offer comprehensive services in family planning. (30) Efforts should be made to improve the contraceptives supply networks to ensure supplies. Proper arrangements should be made in the production of contraceptives and reforms in the management of contraceptives vigorously pursued. While laying emphasis on establishing supply networks in rural areas, especially in remote and poverty-stricken areas to ensure supplies free of charge, we should expand retail sales of contraceptives in cities and economically more developed areas to meet the needs of people of childbearing age.
IX. Consolidate
the Ranks of Family Planning Workers (31) Efforts should be made to consolidate the ranks of family planning institutions at various levels. Competent cadres should be selected to reinforce these institutions to help form a contingent of family planning workers with a rational composition of professional expertise and ages. They should be devoted to their work, and have a thorough understanding of relevant policies and expertise in management and mass work. Governments at all levels should show great concern for and take good care of family planning officials and workers. Advanced units and model workers should be cited for their outstanding achievements and efforts should be made to help them solve problems in their work and daily life. (32) Full or part-time family planning workers should be provided for townships, neighborhood committees, factories, enterprises and institutions. A proper resolution should be found to problems regarding pay and other benefits. (33) Training of family planning workers at all levels should be strengthened. While attention is paid to continued education and short-term training that serves some practical purposes, a systematic in-service professional training should be offered to all full-time family planning workers during the Ninth Five-Year Plan period to help enhance their ideological qualities and professional competence. (34) Efforts should be made to develop education regarding population and family planning and incorporate it into the national and local education plans. A population and family planning education system with a proper scope and reasonable structure should be formed to help train a contingent of professionally well-trained and competent family planning workers.
X. Strengthen Leadership and Adopt an Integrated Approach (35) Serious efforts should be made to implement and improve the responsibility system for the population plan and family planning program management by objectives. Leading officials of the Party and Government at various levels should personally take overall charge of and be held responsible for the family planning work. Leading groups for population and family planning work should be established and efforts made to improve their work and help coordinate between various departments concerned in a joint effort to ensure the success of the family planning program. A scientific system of responsibilities and objectives should be established and methods of evaluation and examination worked out in order to guide the sound development of family planning work. A family planning responsibility system should also be introduced into enterprises whose legal representatives are put in overall charge of promoting family planning. (36) Governments at various levels should use all kinds of methods to help the Party members and cadres, especially those above the county level, to study Marxist theories on population conscientiously and acquire knowledge on population and family planning. They should help them foster a keen awareness of population issues and of per capita share of resources as well as the idea that population growth should be coordinated with socio-economic development, the utilization of resources and the environment. Party organizations and personnel departments at all levels should take family planning work as one of the major factors in evaluating the performance of leading cadres at various levels during their terms of office. A system of rewards and penalties should be established, under which those who have done a good job in family planning will be rewarded and those who have neglected their duties will be punished. (37) All social sectors should pay attention and give great support to family planning and take the implementation of the basic national policy of family planning as their unshakable duty. Policies, laws and regulations formulated by various departments on social welfare, labor and employment and other aspects of social life should be conducive to encouraging later marriages and later childbearing, fewer and healthier births. Local authorities and departments concerned should, under the unified leadership of the government and the super-vision of the people's congress, conscientiously perform their duties in family planning, bring their respective strength into play and adopt effective measures in a common effort to make family planning work a success. (38) Efforts should be made to give the Marriage Law wide publicity, make pre-marriage education universal and strengthen the management of marriage registration in accordance with the Regulation on the Management of Marriage Registration to prevent early marriage and early birth or birth out of wedlock. The Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women should be given greater publicity and women's legitimate rights and interests in education, labor, employment and participation in social activities and marriage as well as family life should be safeguarded. Efforts should be made to constantly enhance women's status and encourage them to devote themselves to the socialist modernization drive. Maternal and child health care should be improved to ensure healthier births and the better rearing and education of children. Constant efforts should be made to promote the health of women and infants and put an end to the infanticide and abandonment of girl babies. Social security systems should be established and improved gradually and a variety of insurance for family planning and the aged should be promoted. In urban area childbearing insurance for women may be practiced on a trial basis. Poverty alleviation programs should be combined with family planning. While supporting poverty-stricken areas in their economic development, we should help them work out population plans and ensure the success of their family planning measures. (39) Efforts should be made to adapt family planning to the changing situation of reform and opening up to the outside world and an emerging socialist market economy, and integrate family planning with economic development, with income-generating projects and with efforts to refine family life and make it more enjoyable, deepen the reform on family planning so as to coordinate population growth with the socio-economic development, resources and the environment. (40) Friendly cooperation with international organizations and governments of various countries should be strengthened and the advanced experience and technologies of other countries should be assimilated to help improve China's family planning work. Publicity aimed at the overseas audience should be launched through various media to introduce to the international community China's achievements and experience in carrying out family planning and coordinating population growth with socio-economic development, resources and the environment. |
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