The Women's Rights and Protection Act in the People's
Republic of China's Constitution states clearly that “Women need special
protection during menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation.” Nonetheless,
reports of sexual assault, such as rape and forced abortion, frequently surface
from Chinese labor camps.
According to the “Falun Gong Human
Rights Report,” ever since the nationwide persecution against Falun Gong began
in 1999 in China, labor camp guards have continually abused female practitioners.
The “Crimes Against Women” section in the report claims that only a handful of
the tens of thousands of detained female practitioners escaped the humiliation
of being stripped naked. Practitioners are often forced to remain naked for very
long times. The female practitioners are not allowed to use clean feminine hygiene
products. They live under the constant fear of sexual assault. The guards frequently
strike practitioners' breasts and vaginal areas with batons and various other
instruments of torture. More horrifying cases recount female practitioners being
raped or even gang raped. Guards also shock practitioners' vaginas with electric
batons, and scrape them with hard-bristled brushes. Many practitioners were also
stripped naked and then thrown into male prison cells. A female Falun Gong practitioner
who escaped, stated, “The evil in those places is unimaginable to the outside
world.”
Evidence collected by the Global Mission
to Rescue Persecuted Falun Gong Practitioners indicates that numerous pregnant
practitioners were subjected to forced abortions. Wang Hongmei, for instance,
was a PhD student majoring in history at Lanzhou University, Gansu Province. The
university police arrested her on June 7, 2001 for practicing Falun Gong. She
was then transferred to Taoshuping Forced Labor Camp in Lanzhou City. At that
time, Wang was pregnant and the police forced her to abort.
According to a
recent report from the Clearwisdom/Minghui websites, Tan Yajiao, a pregnant Falun
Gong practitioner in Benxi City, Liaoning Province, was arrested last year during
the so-called “918 Benxi Raid.” Personnel from the Dong Ming Police Station barbarically
force-fed her, causing a miscarriage. Ms. Tan was force-fed with her whole body
stretched out and shackled to a board. Policewoman Zhang Jinjuan then directed
prisoner Wang to beat Ms. Tan. The report confirmed that the police often left
the force-feeding tube in Ms. Tan's digestive track for as long as seven
days at a time.
Tan Yajiao said, “They continued beating me until I felt the
urge to go to use the bathroom. Because I was shackled and could not move, I used
a basin. Two blood clots came out of my body. One was sticky. The other had a
red circle and fingernail-shaped white object in the middle. The two blood clots
were each about 0.7 to 0.8 centimeters (0.3 in.) wide. A prisoner asked if I was
menstruating. I replied 'No. I miscarried.' Wang, the prisoner, told
another prisoner to quickly flush the clots down the toilet.”
In a report
in The Epoch Times published in September 2004, journalist Zhou Xin traced
the forced abortion of Falun Gong practitioner Wang Guijin from Lutai Village,
Huaiyang Town, Henan Province. Ms. Wang was nine months pregnant when the police
took her to the family planning center and forced her to abort. It was only ten
days before her due date. When the journalist asked the family planning center
in Huaiyang on the phone about Mrs. Wang's forced abortion, the reply was,
“The pregnant woman certainly consented. We wouldn't force anyone to have
an abortion.” Zhou further inquired, “A nine-month pregnancy should naturally
have a normal birth.” The reply was, “This is our national policy. We had other
considerations [in this situation].”
In addition to the abuses of female Falun
Gong practitioners in labor camps, Mao Hengfeng, a woman from Shanghai, was persecuted
severely in a detention center for having more than one child. According to a
report from “Radio Free Asia,” policemen tied Mao Hengfeng's hands and feet
with belts and forcefully pulled her limbs in different directions. They asked
Ms. Mao while pulling her limbs “Will you stop screaming? Will you acknowledge
the fault?” This horrendous behavior lasted for three days.
On March 7, 2005,
Xiong Wei and Chen Ying, Falun Gong practitioners currently in Germany and France,
respectively, were invited to visit the European Parliament in Strasbourg to give
a first-hand account of the persecution in China's labor camps. They not
only described their personal experiences but also gave graphic descriptions of
China's atrocious torture of mothers and children in the persecution against
Falun Gong. Ms. Xiong recounted her ordeal in the Beijing Women's Forced
Labor Camp. She said that she was not allowed to use the bathroom or sanitary
napkins, even during her menstrual period. When she protested against this treatment,
the policemen handcuffed her and threatened to “break your fingers one by one
and scald you with hot water, if you don't give up your practice [of Falun
Gong].” Xiong Wei also talked about a 19-year-old college girl, whom the police
ordered prisoners to strip completely naked and beat. The eight male criminal
inmates stuffed her mouth with socks and underpants and then kicked her vagina
with hard shoes. Twenty days later, this young woman still looked severely depressed.
Chen Ying described her time in detention. She was forced to squat, naked.
She was also forced to take cold showers. The police ordered five or six criminal
inmates to beat her and handcuff her to the window. The police then injected her
with unknown drugs. As soon as the drug entered her body, Ms. Chen felt as if
her heart and blood vessels were painfully split open. The left side of her body
twitched, and she lost some memory.
Posting date: 29/Jul/2005
Original
article date: 28/Jul/2005
Category: News
from China
