Following on from last week when I was commenting on the slave trade in general and the bride trade in China.
We can now ask the question as to why is China seeking all these women and paying large sums of money while doing something that is illicit?
The main driver of this trade is China’s gaping gender gap, a direct result of its one-child policy.
From the time the social experiment was introduced in 1979 until it was relaxed in 2015 countless Chinese couples underwent gender – selective abortions until they had a son.
And the gender imbalance is staggering. The Chinese National Bureau of Statistics reported earlier this year that there were 33.59 million more men than women in China in 2016.
That’s 33.59 million prospective bachelors who may need a wife. This experiment imposed by the government in 1979 to reduce the population was to have horrendous implications.
Couples reduced to one child would make sure that their child would be male as they would have the best opportunities in life.
So how many baby girls would have been aborted over those 26 years, when you think they are out number by 33 million males?
The government didn’t look to the future to say who will be around for the imbalance of males when they wish to marry?
This is the problem when we start to interfere with what God has destined for us his created beings.
This is when we start to interfere with the Christian understanding of the Natural Law.
Marcus Cicero said, “There is indeed a law, right reason, which is in accordance with nature, existing in all, unchangeable, eternal. Commanding us to do what is right, forbidding us to do what is wrong”.
When we think we can improve, better or change things of God we are walking on dangerous ground.
This is evident with the ‘experiment’ in China. The Chinese officials would never have contemplated the thinking of couples by having thousands of abortions so as to have their one child a male.
To introduce an experiment which cuts across God’s plan for us and with terrible consequences for many, many people.
It’s difficult to see any short term solution to the problem China has created for themselves and obviously nearby countries. Because the trade is so lucrative many in power are turning a blind eye while benefiting financially.
God knows what is best for us and we need to be careful when we are tempted to take the path that contravenes the way of God as given to us by Cicero.
The China officials by taking this path many years ago will now pay the price for many years to come because there is no quick fix.
This is a classic example of China selfishly solving, or trying to, its own demographic problems through the suffering of its own but more so through the suffering of its neighbour’s women and girls.
Fr Michael Morley
Parish Priest
Sacred Heart Tatura
