On April 30, 2015, Chen Guangcheng delivered the following testimony during a Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) hearing entitled “Population Control in China: State-Sponsored Violence Against Women and Children.”
The original version is published at the CECC hearing page, and is offered here with thanks to Chen Guangcheng for permission to do so.
By its very nature the crime of human trafficking strips each victim of his or her humanity. Sex trafficking in particular, which is categorized by law as a “severe form” of human trafficking, rebrands the person as a product to be bought and sold for pleasure. In the United States alone, the Central Intelligence Agency estimates that around 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States and as many as 400,000 domestic minors are also involved in the trade each year. These alarming figures testify to the firm foothold that this hidden criminal activity has in the United States.
Last week the news broke of yet another forced abortion in China. In an interview with the UK’s Sky News, Liu Xinwen and her husband Zhou Guoquing revealed that their home was invaded by officials from the Shandong Family Planning who held down Mr. Zhou while his wife was pulled from her bed and forcibly taken to a hospital where she was forcibly aborted at six month of pregnancy.
This past week it was announced that the husband of Feng Jianmei, a Chinese woman forced to undergo an abortion in the seventh month of her pregnancy, has made known that he and his wife want the family planning officials responsible for the forced abortion to face criminal changes. They are also planning to seek government compensation for their loss, according to the Associated Press.
On April 27th, in a daring flight to freedom that caught the attention of the entire world, Chen Guangcheng successfully managed to escape the dwelling where he has been under house arrest for two years and evade the authorities who have kept him under constant surveillance, showering him and his family with abuse. The 40-year-old blind lawyer and family man was driven by friends from his home in the Shendong province to Beijing, where he took refuge in the U.S. Embassy. Following negotiations between the U.S. and China, Chen was effectively returned to Chinese authorities at a Beijing hospital. However, the State Department has said that China has indicated it will approve Chen’s application to travel to the United States. The fallout from his epic escape has been enormous and has ignited an intense discussion regarding human rights in China. View More