China stakeholder submission to the URP (4th cycle) by Humanitarian China and China Change, July 2023
Humanitarian China is a Non-Profit organization focused on the promotion of human rights in the People’s Republic of China. It provides humanitarian support to Chinese human rights defenders and raises awareness of both their efforts and government reprisals against them. It was founded in February 2007.
China Change is a US-based Non-Profit organization founded in June 2013 to disseminate information about human rights, the rule of law, and civil society in China.
INTRODUCTION
1. This submission seeks to draw attention to concerns over the rights of the child in the People’s Republic of China (excluding Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Macau), where spouses and children of human rights defenders (HRDs) are targeted in retaliation to their advocacy activities. These children are deprived of parental care and denied the right to maintain contact with their parents; many also have their rights to education, health care and freedom of movement restricted. Some are even subject to detention and police violence.
2. In the reporting period (2018-2023), China’s harsh crackdown on civil society continues. More activists, journalists, lawyers, writers, entrepreneurs, NGO workers and religious clergy have been detained, and their family members have been threatened and intimidated. Owing to the state’s systematic targeting of citizens who exercise their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, children’s rights issues are often neglected, and violations are left unaddressed. This generalised vulnerability is greatly exacerbated for children of citizens enduring political persecution, who face the sudden severance from all those who protect their safety and healthy development.
3. While the international society has rightly protested the separation of children from their families in Xinjiang and Tibet, the plight of children of HRDs affected by the government crackdown elsewhere is lesser known. This is one of the most isolated and vulnerable groups in China, one of the most at risk of abuse, ostracization and neglect. The government’s persecution of prominent HRDs such as lawyer Gao Zhisheng and his wife and their children’s ordeals were widely reported. However, their experiences are by no means an isolated case; rather, they are symptomatic of systemic problems with the welfare and protection of children of HRDs in China. This submission aims to highlight the urgent need for independent research to define the scope of these problems and their impact on children’s lives.
4. This submission begins by looking at China’s record in the present UPR cycle in relation to the rights of the child. It then summarizes violations against HRDs and their children. The next section uses typical recent cases to highlight serious issues such as politically motivated forced separation of children from parents; weaponization of children against their parents; deprivation of freedom of conscience and religion; denial of heath rights; enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention of children.
COMMITMENTS RELATING TO THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
5. China signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1990 and ratified it in 1992. CRC states that state parties must protect children against discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, religion and “political or other opinion” of their parents (Article 2); “The best interests of the child must be a top priority in all decisions and actions that affect children” (Article 3); all children have the right to survive and the right to develop (Article 6); “Children must not be separated from their parents against their will unless it is in their best interests” (Article 9); children must “be able to keep in contact with their family” and “must not be put in prison with adults” (Article 37).
6. China’s 2020 Minors Protection Law protects the rights and interests of minors (under 18s). The Minors Protection Law states that children have the right “to survival, growth, and protection of their physical and mental health” (Article 2) and “to personal dignity, privacy, and protection from infringement upon their reputation or honor” (Article 4)”; they should be “treated equally regardless of their ethnicity, race, gender, or religion” (Article 3); they have “the right to receive compulsory education and access to education resources” (Article 5) , “the right to family care, and parents or guardians have the duty to raise and educate them”, and “the right to be protected from discrimination, maltreatment, and abandonment” (Article 9) .
7. During the third cycle of the UPR in 2018, China supported the majority of recommendations directly related to the rights of the child, including: maintaining its effective protection for the family as the fundamental and natural unit of society (Egypt); guaranteeing children’s health rights, namely by ensuring that they are protected against unsafe vaccinations and blood transfusions (Portugal); accelerating the process of modifying the relevant law in order to continue improving the legal protection of minors (Dominican Republic).
8. China noted two recommendations directly related to children of human rights defenders: releasing all people in administrative detention for political reasons and their family members, and eliminate extra-judicial measures like forced disappearances (Canada); ending the use of harassment, detention, arrest, and extra-legal measures such as enforced disappearance to control and silence human rights activists as well as their family members and friends (US).
RIGHTS OF CHILDREN OF HRDS IN CHINA
9. The reality of the rights of children of HRDs in China paints an altogether different picture.
10. It is apparent that authorities do not take the best interests of these children into consideration when and after their primary caregivers are detained. Some children witness their parents being violently taken away by police who break into their homes in the middle of the night. The resultant terror and confusion cause long-lasting psychological damage. Some children are detained together with their parents or interrogated by police without an adult companion present. In almost all cases, HRDs are denied visits from family members during pre-trial detention, resulting in children losing contact with their parents for months or even years on end.
11. These children’s right to survival and development is restricted. Often, when authorities take a HRD into custody for interrogation, they freeze the family’s bank accounts, causing their child(ren) to live in destitution. Some children become dependent on elderly, frail relatives, who struggle to provide the care necessary for very young or school-aged children. Some families have to frequently move as a result of forced evictions. Some live under strict surveillance, followed by plain-clothes police wherever they go. Some have been banned from leaving China and are therefore unable to take up their offers of admission to study abroad. Constant harassment causes children to suffer from depression and anxiety, which can stunt their emotional and social development and enact negative consequences which may persist well into adulthood.
12. Many HRDs face unfair dismissal and have difficulty finding employment due to government harassment. Financial hardships due to lack of a stable family income are common among this group. Children are unable to receive adequate, timely medical care as a result. Some cannot travel to a suitable health provider because their parents are subject to travel bans.
13. Some children are denied places at their preferred university just because of their HRD parents or are forced out of school altogether, in direct violation of their right to education.
14. It is not uncommon for HRDs to separate from or divorce their spouses under the unbearable strain of ongoing government repression following their release from prison. In some cases, police ask their spouses to denounce their actions or even divorce them. In order to avoid the government weaponizing HRD’s loved ones to coerce them into giving up their work, some choose to divorce. Their children have to bear all the consequences family breakups bring.
15. Many HRDs are torture survivors. After release from imprisonment or detention, they continue to suffer from the physical injuries incurred from torture and mistreatment, and are often left with psychological issues. As a result, some suffer issues in their relationships with their children, or managing the responsibilities of parenting.
16. Some children have lost all that is precious to them: parental care, contact with their parents, home, education, liberty, privacy, health, and hope for the future. Some children and young people have been forced to flee China and seek asylum elsewhere on their own or with one parent, and exit bans mean they cannot reunite with their parent(s) in the foreseeable future. The difficulties in adapting to new environments without the nurture and support of parental guardians are immense, and can negatively impact the entire trajectory of young lives.
POLITICALLY MOTIVATED FORCED SEPARATION OF CHILDREN FROM THEIR PARENTS
Case1: Single mother Li Yu (jailed twice totalling six years), Shandong Province
18. In May 2014, Li Yu and her one-year-old son were detained by police in Beijing for her effort to commemorate Tiananmen Square Massacre victims. They were taken in by local authorities in Zaozhuang, Shandong, and detained in a hotel for 15 days. Li was then criminally detained for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. After she was released from prison in 2018, she recalled how an official “snatched” her baby from her when she was breastfeeding him, how her son had a fever and was crying continuously that day, and how she “felt lost and numb for several days, while her breast milk was overflowing” after being forcibly separated from her baby. She later learnt that he had been taken to an orphanage. She was only allowed to see her five-year-old son three times, then she was jailed again for two years. After she was released in 2020, the authorities denied her access to her son. In 2022, after much effort, Li Yu was finally allowed to take her son home, but she has had to keep a low profile in order to keep her child.[i] [ii]
Case 2: Dissident poet Wang Zang (aka Wang Yuwen, serving a 4-year sentence in prison; previously detained for supporting Hong Kong 2014 pro-democracy protests) and wife Wang Liqin (aka Wang Li, served a 30-month sentence), Yunnan Province [iii] [iv]
19. On the afternoon of May 30, 2020, about 50 police officers came to the Wangs’ family home. They physically restrained Wang Zang, handcuffed him and put a black hood over his head. They then restrained Wang Liqin, her mother-in-law, and her four children (aged 3, 3, 7 and 11). They took Zang and Liqin to a police station, leaving their crying children with their grandmother. While police were ransacking their home, the elderly grandmother fainted; an ambulance was called in. The youngest boy hid behind curtains for several hours until he was found by his grandmother. Liqin was not released until the next morning.
20. On the evening of June 1, 2020, police came into Liqin’s bedroom when she was putting her children to bed, and took her to a police station. They forced her to tell them the password for her phone and that of her husband, saying that she would also be detained and her children sent to an orphanage unless she cooperated with them. The shock overwhelmed her, and she passed out. Police sent her home early the next morning while her children were asleep, and ransacked her home again.
21. On June 8, 2020, Liqin issued an appeal on Twitter saying that she, her mother-in-law and her children were under house arrest, unable to leave home to buy food or receive help from relatives; her phone, ID cards and bank cards were seized; food was running out and “Yunnan police want us to starve at home”. Her WeChat account was blocked, and she feared she would not be able to seek help should an emergency arise.
22. On June 17, 2020, Liqin was summoned to the local police station. After, she was incommunicado for months. In September 2020, it became known that Zang and Liqin both had been formally arrested for “inciting subversion” in July 2020. Zang’s mother and four children have been living under surveillance since. Parcels containing food and toys donated by friends were confiscated by their guards.
23. The grandmother was forced to sign a document promising that she would not meet with the couple’s lawyers. In May 2022, she said that she was in poor health and struggling to raise four grandchildren on her own for so long. She and teachers of the eldest boy raised alarm about his mental health, as he had taken to self-harm using a knife.
Case 3: Children of Falun Gong couples in Beijing
24. In 1999, the Chinese government launched a nationwide crackdown on Falun Gong, viewing it as a threat to its authority due to its large following and independent organizational structure. The government considers Falun Gong to be a “cult” and has accused it of undermining social stability. Consequently, the Chinese government has implemented a systematic campaign to suppress Falun Gong practitioners and eradicate the movement. There are countless cases of children of Falun Gong practitioners having their rights severely violated in retaliation for their parents’ beliefs. In January 2019, minghui.org published a list of more than 100 cases of persecution of Falun Gong practitioner couples in Beijing. Thirty couples were both detained or sentenced to re-education through labour or imprisonment, resulting in their children being left unattended, deprived of their means of subsistence, with their schooling severely impacted and damage inflicted to their physical and mental health. In one case, a boy committed suicide while his parents were detained in a labour camp. [v]
WEAPONIZATION OF CHILDREN AGAINST HRDS
Case 4: Human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang (served four years and six months in prison), Beijing
25. In September 2019, Li Wenzu, wife of the jailed lawyer, detailed how Beijing police ordered all the local kindergartens to not accept her son and how he was forced out of a primary school after four days. She said officials made her six-year-old boy into a “bargaining chip” so as to persecute and coerce her husband, who repeatedly expressed concerns about their son’s schooling during prison visits. [vi]
Case 5: NGO worker Cheng Yuan (serving 5 years in prison for subversion), Shenzhen [vii] [viii]
26. In the early morning of July 22, 2019, Cheng Yuan and his wife Shi Minglei were in bed when national security officers broke into their home in Shenzhen to detain him. They filmed their three-year-old daughter changing her underwear with a camera, a fact which has caused the little girl subsequent distress. Police followed Shi when she took her daughter to her kindergarten and afterwards interrogated her until the next morning. A friend looked after her daughter that night. An interrogator tried to blackmail Shi into confession: “You are not cooperating and confessing. Do you want me to get your daughter here and question you two together?”
27. Shi was placed under house arrest for six months on suspicion of subversion, together with her daughter. On the evening of July 27, 2019, after Shi spoke up about her husband’s detention, Shenzhen national security officers broke into her home. They interrogated and insulted her in front of her daughter. Police also threatened her that her sister’s child would be in trouble unless she stopped advocating for her husband and his colleagues.
28. After repeated harassment, her daughter’s Christian kindergarten was forced to shut down in June 2020.
VIOLATION OF THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION AND FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE AND RELIGION
Case 6: Pastor Wang Yi (serving a 9-year sentence in prison) and Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Church (ERCC), Sichuan Province
29. On December 9, 2018, as part of a large police operation against the church, Pastor Wang Yi and his wife Jiang Rong of ERCC were both taken by Chengdu police, leaving their 11-year-old son Shuya at home. Jiang was detained for six months, during which time her son lived with his grandmother under strict police surveillance. Shuya, who had always attended ERCC church school, was transferred to a state school and escorted there each day in a police vehicle. After Jiang’s release on bail, she was allowed to live with her son at a designated location under house arrest. They have been denied contact with relatives and friends ever since. [ix]
30. ERCC member Liao Qiang had his adopted three-year-old son used to blackmail him by police. Police threatened him that unless he cut ties with the church, they would forcibly take away the three-year-old, who has a malignant tumor in one arm. Some other church members had their adopted children placed into state orphanages by authorities, and believing the threat was imminent, he and his family fled China in July 2019. [x]
31. On October 28, 2021, Chengdu police officers forcibly entered the home of an ERCC couple while several Christian children were studying under their supervision. The officers threw the couple’s eight-year-old boy to the floor, injuring his forehead. They punched his father, who was holding his other one-year-old boy in his arms, resulting in the father falling to the ground and breaking the infant’s head. The two boys’ mother was detained overnight. This is one incident of many where the authorities in Chengdu harass ERCC members over Christian home schooling. [xi]
32. ERCC members and their families have been subject to house arrest and forced evictions as punishment for continuing with their religious activities, which are regarded by the government as “illegal”. Some couples and their children have to endure days without water and electricity. On March 17, 2023, Elder Li Yingqiang and his wife were forcibly taken by police from Chengdu to Deyang, another city in Sichuan, without being given time to collect their two young children and keys to their rented accommodation in Deyang. [xii]
RIGHT TO HEALTH; ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE AND ARBITRARY DETENTION OF CHILDREN
Case 7: He Fangmei (repeatedly detained) and Li Xin (serving a 5-year sentence in prison), Henan Province [xiii] [xiv] [xv]
33. This couple became health rights defenders in 2018 after their healthy infant daughter developed a neurological disease and became paralysed as a result of a defective vaccine. He Fangmei collaborated with other parents of children who became ill or disabled after receiving defective vaccinations to establish the “Vaccine Babies’ Home” group, which advocated more stringent regulation of vaccine safety, and establishment of legislation to regulate compensation for defective vaccine victims. Since then, Chinese authorities have subjected the couple and their children to a sustained campaign of oppression, including detentions, enforced disappearances, and serious restrictions to their freedom of movement. They were blocked from taking their disabled daughter to Beijing to receive urgently needed medical treatment.
34. In protest, pregnant He Fangmei sprayed paint on the front signage of the Huixian local government on October 9, 2020. Then the whole family disappeared. They were held incommunicado until March 2022, when He Fangmei’s family received a notice about her arrest.
35. Family then learned that He Fangmei, who was five months pregnant at the time, and her then four-year-old daughter, were transferred to “live under surveillance” at the Xinxiang Gongji Psychiatric Hospital in Henan, where she gave birth to a baby girl in February 2021. Her seven-year-old son was sent to live with a villager who had assisted Huixian police to guard his mother, and he began to attend elementary school. Her husband Li Xin had been sentenced after a secret trial.
36. On March 23, 2022, shortly after her baby turned one, He Fangmei was formally arrested and taken to a detention center, where she still awaits a verdict. Her two young daughters continue to live under surveillance in the psychiatric hospital.
37. The disabled six-year-old girl should have started school but is deprived of education. Furthermore, she has been barefoot because the hospital is not equipped to provide her with the custom-made corrective shoes she requires. The two-year-old girl was born inside the psychiatric hospital, has never experienced life outside it, and has never met her father.
38. In May 2023, He Fangmei wrote to her elder sister to entrust the children to her care. However, neither the Xinxiang Gongji Psychiatric Hospital nor the Huixian Public Security Bureau would allow the children’s relatives to visit them. Their relatives expressed fears for their safety and wellbeing because no safeguarding is in place to protect these young girls from harm. They have learned of some signs of neglect, for instance, on one occasion, the two girls appeared as if they had rarely been bathed.
39. He Fangmei’s family learned that the prosecutor posits a jail term between five to seven years for her. Without parental care, nor the ability for relatives to check on their wellbeing, the children are facing a lonely and uncertain future under the surveillance of strangers, and in an environment entirely unconducive to their healthy development.
40. With the couple’s arbitrary detention and imprisonment, the principles of family unity and protection of the child’s best interests as outlined in the CRC have been entirely neglected. The six-year-old’s treatment in the hospital is in violation of Article 23 of the CRC: “A child with a disability has the right to live a full and decent life with dignity and, as far as possible, independence and to play an active part in the community. Governments must do all they can to support disabled children and their families” ; and Article 14 of the Minors Protection Law, which stipulates “measures to protect minors with disabilities and ensure their access to education and healthcare”.
RECOMMENDATIONS
41. The State Party must ensure local government officials at all levels know its treaty obligations under the CRC, and all provisions stipulated in the Minors Protection Law. All relevant stakeholders, including schools, social organizations, hospitals and state institutions should be aware of their responsibilities in ensuring the well-being and development of children.
42. The State Party must demonstrate that it takes children’s best interests as a primary consideration in its handling of prosecution against activists and dissidents. Authorities at every level must understand their legal responsibilities to protect impressionable and vulnerable young people from physical and psychological harm.
43. The State Party must implement the Minors Protection Law and ensure, as per Article 2 of the CRC, that children are not discriminated against due to their parents’ activities, opinions or status. There must be a much greater understanding of this article demonstrated comprehensively by all relevant stakeholders who deal with the children of HRDs. This entails the immediate cessation of all forms of detention, persecution, intimidation, harassment and surveillance of the children of HRDs.
44. The State Party must promote the welfare and well-being of children and play an active role in supporting the adults who protect them from abuse and neglect.
45. The State Party must protect the family as the fundamental unit of society and respect children’s right to family life. Where possible, children should be placed under the care of family members closest to them, not into state-run establishments.
46. The State Party must cease the harassment, house arrest of, and travel restrictions on, human rights defenders and their families.
47. The State Party must ensure that detainees and prisoners can receive regular visits from their family members.
48. The State Party must ensure that human rights defenders can work free from fear of retribution against their families.
49. The State Party must take measures to ensure that all children, especially those of human rights defenders, have access to healthcare and education. If, for any reason, access to education or healthcare is interrupted, the State Party must ensure adequate provisions are in place to ensure their immediate resumption.
50. The State Party should immediately release those who have been detained or imprisoned for exercising their freedom of expression or in connection with their peaceful defence of basic human rights.
51. The State Party should sign the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
CONCLUSIONS
52. China has made several acknowledgments about the crucial importance of safeguarding the safe and healthy development of children. During the last UPR in 2018, the government stated that “China attaches great importance to the protection of children’s rights and interests”[xvi]. However, as this submission has shown, the commitments which China made to safeguard the rights of the child have not been implemented when it comes to children of HRDs. On numerous fronts, the human rights situation in China has deteriorated further during the reporting period. Citizens are at increasing risk of being targeted for their work in defending basic human rights and having their family lives torn apart in government retaliation.
53. In China’s ongoing crackdown on civil society, HRDs with children are among the worst affected. The cases described above illustrate the weaponization of children as leverage to manipulate and exert pressure on HRDs and punish them for their work. This is an act of inhumanity which turns the precious love between parent and child into a tool of government oppression, and disregards the profound and far-reaching consequences enacted on young innocent lives. The cases above highlight government abuses of power, including forced, prolonged separation of children from their parents, deprivation of custody of children, and detention of and withholding of medical care to disabled children. These actions are deeply concerning and represent a flagrant contravention of international human rights principles, as well as domestic laws and policies meant to protect the rights and well-being of children and uphold family rights. The pain being inflicted on families cannot be underestimated.
54. Member States must pay urgent attention to the appalling plight facing the vulnerable children whose parents are politically persecuted and provide them with humanitarian aid wherever possible. They must urge China to take concrete measures to uphold its obligations under CRC and protect every child’s basic human rights.
[i] Li Xin’an, 《山东公民李玉剃发鸣冤 幼子被关孤儿院七年》(“Shandong citizen Li Yu shaves her hair to air her grievances; her young son has been locked up in an orphanage for seven years”), December 9, 2021 https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/12/8/n13425121.html
[ii] RFA,《山东维权人士李玉与儿子分隔多年 日前终于母子相见》(“Shandong rights activist Li Yu has been separated from her son for years; she finally met him recently”), February 18, 2022 https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/renquanfazhi/sc2-02182022092828.html
[iii] Wang Liqin, June 8, 2020 https://twitter.com/0530Wlq/status/1269842662665990145
[iv] China Aid, 《中国著名异议诗人王藏、王利芹夫妇双双被捕近两年，一家老小、年迈体弱的王藏母亲和四个孩子，身心遭受极大煎熬》(“It has been nearly two years since the arrest of the famous Chinese dissident poet Wang Zang and his wife Wang Lixin, and the elderly and frail grandmother and four children have suffered great physical and mental pain”), May 21, 2022 https://www.chinaaid.net/2022/05/blog-post_27.html
[v] Minghui,《北京百余夫妻法轮功学员遭迫害案例》(“Over 100 cases of persecutied Falun Gong practitioner couples in Beijing”), January 26, 2019
[vi] Li Wenzu, “Imprisoned Lawyer Wang Quanzhang’s Six-year-old Son Once Again Forced Out of School”, September 6, 2019 https://chinachange.org/2019/09/06/imprisoned-lawyer-wang-quanzhangs-six-year-old-son-once-again-forced-out-of-school/
[vii] Shi Minglei, 《程渊被抓经过——恐怖的722》(“Cheng Yuan’s Arrest – The Terror of 722”), July 2020 https://www.chinahrc.org/content/31713/
[viii] Shi Minglei, 《自由了，程渊妻女！》(“Finally free, Cheng Yuan’s wife and daughter!”), April 7, 2021 https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/664670.html
[ix] China Aid, 《王怡牧师系狱近三年第一次见到妻子蒋蓉》(“Pastor Wang Yi met wife Jiang Rong for the first time after nearly three years in prison”), October 31, 2021 https://www.chinaaid.net/2021/10/blog-post_338.html
[x] China Aid, 《秋雨教会基督徒一家六口逃亡台湾 寻求政治庇护》(“A Christian family of six from Early Rain Church fled Taiwan, seeking political asylum”), July 8, 2019 https://www.chinaaid.net/2019/07/blog-post_9.html
[xi] RFA, 《秋雨教会信徒家又被强闯 八岁孩子也被打伤》(“Early Rain church member’s home broken into again, eight-year-old also injured”)， October 29, 2021 https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/gangtai/hx1029b-10292021072158.html
[xii] Li Yingqiang, 《3月17日在成都》(“Chengdu, March 17”), March 20, 2023
[xiii] Civil Rights & Livelihood Watch，《何方美被超期羁押女儿滞留精神病院》(“He Fangmei in prolonged detention; her daughters stranded in psychiatric hospital”), June 2, 2023 https://msguancha.com/a/lanmu4/2023/0602/22767.html
[xiv] He Fangmei, 《疫苗致残的4岁女儿生日之际被抓捕监视记》(“Daughter disabled after vaccination detained and surveilled on her 4th birthday”), July 23, 2020 https://cmcn.org/archives/50238
[xv] Dai Ju，《“疫苗宝宝之家”发起人何方美案超期羁押仍未判决：女儿至今滞留精神病院》(“He Fangmei, the detained founder of the Vaccine Babies’ Home, is still waiting for verdict; her daughters still stranded in psychiatric hospital”), February 1, 2023 https://ngocn2.org/article/2023-02-01-he-fang-mei-case-overdue-detention/
[xvi] National report submitted in accordance with paragraph 5 of the annex to Human Rights Council resolution 16/21** China, August 2018