The “One child” policy in China is well known. Forced abortion and even infanticide are among the brutal measures empoyed to enforce this policy. An additional side effect of the “one child” policy is infanticide, often practiced as a form of sex selection, employed most frequently when a couple prefers a boy.
Less known is the fact that many “excess” children are abandoned. The London Daily Mail tells the compelling story of a poor woman named Lou Xiaoying, now 88, who worked her entire life collecting and reselling garbage. In the past 30 years, she has found and rescued 30 children who were thrown in the garbage by parents who either did not want them or feared punishment from the government.
Lou Xiaoying and her husband, who is now deceased quickly decided back in 1972 that they would make their home a place of refuge. Lou described the mission she and her husband undertook with earnest simplicity.
‘I realised if we had strength enough to collect garbage how could we not recycle something as important as human lives. She said.
Lou Xiaoying has become a hero in her village and across China. The loving care she gives abandoned children stands in stark contrast to China’s unfeeling bureaucracy. Through quiet example, Lou Xiaoying highlights the terrible human costs of China’s “one child” policy.
Today, Lou Xiaoying is in a Chinese hospital with kidney failure. The four throwayay children, her biological daughter and the children she placed with other families remember her fondly and attend to her in her time of infirmity.
