All Girls AllowedFaith McDonnellJune 4, 2010
The following originally appeared in a recent Religious Liberty Program e-newsletter. If you would like to receive our weekly e-newsletter, click here and select "Religious Liberty." Find additional newsletters in the IRD E-Newsletter Archive.
The following originally appeared in a recent Religious Liberty Program e-newsletter. If you would like to receive our weekly e-newsletter, click here and select "Religious Liberty."
Find additional newsletters in the IRD E-Newsletter Archive.
She was the leader of the Student Revolution at Tiananmen Square, twenty-one years ago. Now Chai Ling is leading a new revolution – for girls, in China.
After the massacre by Chinese tanks and guns on June 4, 1989, Chai Ling evaded the Chinese Communist government’s search for the “21 most-wanted” students with the help of Buddhist friends. She eventually arrived in America, became a very successful business woman, married an American, and had three children. But although she was determined that as a “successful entrepreneur, like Bill Gates” she could “set up a giant foundation” and “free China,” she became discouraged and lost hope.
It was not until Chai Ling surrendered her life to Christ last December, that she realized that freedom would come to the Chinese people through those who bring God’s love and the transforming power of the Gospel to them. And God also gave Chai Ling a vision for ministry to help create a China were all girls are allowed – allowed to live, allowed to thrive, allowed to excel, allowed to marry and have children that will not be taken from them before or after birth.
No one knew the Chinese regime better than Chai Ling…or so she thought, she says in her testimony given at Park Street Church in Boston. Then she attended a Congressional hearing on China’s One Child Policy and forced abortion practice. For the first time, Chai Ling heard about the brutality used against Chinese women. She heard that in one year, in one county alone, there were 10,000 abortions. She heard that in the three decades since the One Child Policy began, an estimated 400 MILLION babies have been forcibly aborted in China. And she heard that in China an abortion takes place every 2.5 seconds.
One witness at the hearing was Wujian (not her real name), a young Chinese woman who had become pregnant without receiving a “birth permit” that allows a Chinese woman to have one, and only one, child. The “family planning” officials beat and tortured Wujian’s father, trying to discover her whereabouts. Her father suffered through the beatings without revealing her hiding place, but they found her anyway.
Wujian was dragged to a hospital where she was given two inoculations to kill the baby. After two days, when the baby survived these toxic shots, Wujian was dragged into the operating room where her baby was cut into pieces and removed from her body. Chai Ling recounts how only coming to faith in Christ saved Wujian from the despair and depression that she went through after her baby was killed. The shocking truth is that some 500 women commit suicide every day in China. The suicide rate for Chinese women is three times that of the men.
In her testimony, Chai Ling says, “To my horror, I realized what was happening. No one could ever forget the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre even though it has now been over twenty years. Yet very few of us realized that the three words “One Child Policy” would be a marching order for brutality hundreds times more to the Tiananmen Massacre to happen in the day light, to be repeated each and every day. In Wujian’s own tearful words, “Who could help them? Who could save them? The ‘One Child Policy’ and forced abortion policy have killed millions of innocent lives in China. How could this inhumane crime be stopped? When could this inhuman crime be stopped?”
It was intentional that on June 1, celebrated in China as “International Children’s Day,” Chai Ling launched her new initiative to combat forced abortion and sterilization in China, “All Girls Allowed.” I attended the launch, which took place at a panel discussion/briefing on Capitol Hill hosted by Chai Ling’s Jenzabar Foundation, China Aid, and another organization to combat forced abortion and sexual slavery in China, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers. In addition to Chai Ling, the panelists included U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), who has chaired 27 hearings on human rights in China in his 28 years of service; T. Kumar, Asia Director for Amnesty International; Reggie Littlejohn, the President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers; and Xiong Yan, one of Chai Ling’s fellow leaders in the student movement at Tiananmen Square who is now a U.S. Army Captain and Chaplain.
Although the information at the panel discussion was chilling, the efforts of All Girls Allowed and other such organizations bring hope. According to Congressman Smith, “All Girls Allowed” will “make the difference” as Chai Ling brings God’s love to China.