A human rights group is labeling China’s decision to reform its one-child policy "not enough" after state-run media reported that the country will do away with the three-decades-old rule and allow two children for every couple.
Amnesty International said in a press release Thursday that the policy change will still lead to coerced forms of contraception and forced abortions that have been used by officials to enforce the rule since it was put into effect in the 1970s to slow population growth.
"The move to change China’s one-child policy is not enough. Couples that have two children could still be subjected to coercive and intrusive forms of contraception, and even forced abortions--which amount to torture," William Nee, a China researcher at Amnesty International, stated in the news release.
"The state has no business regulating how many children people have. If China is serious about respecting human rights, the government should immediately end such invasive and punitive controls over people’s decisions to plan families and have children."
Local officials have used harsh fines, forced sterilization, and coerced abortions to enforce the one-child policy, which the state-run Xinhua news agency reported Thursday will be ended.
"To promote a balanced growth of population, China will continue to uphold the basic national policy of population control and improve its strategy on population development," The Xinhua news agency reported, pointing to an announcement from the ruling Communist Party, according to CNN. "China will fully implement the policy of ‘one couple, two children’ in a proactive response to the issue of an aging population."
According to the Chinese news outlet, the country’s top legislature still needs to approve the proposal.
China started easing back on the policy at the start of last year by letting couples have a second child if either the mother or father had no siblings. The country has a population of over 1.3 billion people, but the Chinese government says that China could have the oldest population on earth in 15 years, which will create problems for the economy.