Tiananmen Dissident Turned Software Entrepreneur Urges End to Forced Abortions in China
Ling Chai, the former Chinese dissident leader during the Tiananmen massacre, has found a new calling.
Chai, who became a successsful businesswoman after fleeing to the U.S., joined members of Congress on Tuesday to urge the Chinese president to end China's One-Child Policy, a population control measure implemented by the government in the late '70s.
In a room on Capitol Hill, the entrepreneur and activist stook alongside Rep. Chris Smith R-N.J., Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., and human rights advocates, marking the first day of President Hu Jintao's visit to the U.S.
Chai and Smith called on Obama and other state officials to advocate against the population measure. Amid social pressures to have a male heir, the repercussions of the policy include fines for failure to comply and, in some areas of China, human trafficking and forced abortions.
Smith said the psychologcail effects of the policy are evident in China's suicide rate for women, which si three times higher than that of me. The World Health Organization reported over 500 female suicides per day in China in 2008, the only country in the world in which more women take their lives than men.
In her speech, Chai said Obama as a parent of two girls, may have had to choose just one daughter, or had neither, if he lived in certain areas of china, the world's most populous country with 1.3 billion people.
