Christian Woman Guo Yanling Testifies to Congress By Phone From Thailand About Her Forced Abortion Experience

China Aid Association
(Washington, D.C.—July 9, 2012) Members of Congress, the media and the public attending a Congressional hearing on Monday on China’s one-child policy heard Guo Yanling describe the shocking details of her forced abortion experience.

GuoThrough arrangements made by ChinaAid, Guo spoke by phone from Thailand to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights at its hearing on “Continued Human Rights Attacks on Families in China.” ChinaAid founder and president Bob Fu interpreted for her.

(The photo on the paperwork from Guo Yanling’s May 4, 1995 forced sterilization.)

Guo, a Christian from the region of Guangxi, and her husband Du Yiliang were forced into exile for 21 years for violating China’s one-child family planning policy.

Guo had just recently contacted ChinaAid for help, and ChinaAid is prepared to work with other international organizations to support Guo and her husband and to help them gain refugee status from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. ChinaAid is also prepared to offer them and their family spiritual and financial assistance.

Guo’s testimony, which she delivered with sobs, moved everyone in the hearing room.

The full text of her prepared remarks is below:

A Personal Account of Being Seized by the Family Planning Commission
of China’s Communist Party and Forced to Have an Abortion
Guo Yanling
Testimony before
U. S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs (COFA)
Hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights
on “Continued Human Rights Attacks on Families in China”
2 p.m., July 9, 2012,
Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2172, Washington, D.C.
(English translation provided by China Aid Association)

Honorable Chairman Chris Smith and honorable members of the Committee, friends for human rights in China,

The year was 1995; I was eight-months pregnant and was lodging at #16 Zheng Street, Yaotouling, Jiangnan District in Nanning City. At this address was a small street-side barber shop operated by my younger sister and her husband. Past the shop’s front room was a bedroom where a bed had been added. This was my place of refuge. (It was governed by the “hostel” neighborhood committee).

It was around seven in the morning on the day that the incident occurred. Heading out to buy breakfast, I turned left and walked about seventy meters to a T-junction, then turned right and arrived at the Community Supply and Marketing Cooperative (which was not open then) that was kitty-corner across the street. I was stopped by an older woman in her 50s who asked me if I had a “birth permit.” I said no. When she looked at people, this older woman’s eyes were half-closed (probably a congenital problem). Looking around, I saw that there were people guarding the nearby intersection, and I realized misfortune was in store. Then, two staff members from the Family Planning Commission came and asked me where I was from, where I lived and what my name was. I gave no reply to these questions and this confrontation and standoff with them continued for over ten minutes. I waved and yelled for a ride from the motorbikes that were passing by without break but none would come. I tried to walk away but they wouldn’t let me go. At this time I appealed to the crowds gathering around to watch by yelling: “Help, somebody!” But no one came to help. Then two vans arrived, their doors opened and people sitting inside. At this point the Family Planning Commission staff members standing by urged me to get in quickly. I refused and said, “I don’t know who you are, why you are asking me to get into your vehicle and where you are taking me?” They said, “You will know after you get in.” At this critical juncture I called for help a second time: Help! Somebody please help me now! But still no one came to help. At this moment, a male Family Planning Commission worker said, “It’s useless to yell anything. Whoever dares to rescue you will be taken as well.” Thus, with nobody daring to come to my aid, I was pushed forcibly into the van.

On the road, in an attempt to save my baby who would soon be arriving in this world, I reached my hand for the van door. They grabbed me and held me down on the van floor, yanking my hair and trampling my limbs and body. For the third time I screamed again “murder,” only to have a cloth used to wipe cars stuffed into my mouth. I had no clue where they were taking me. But I had heard previously about pregnant women seized by the Family Planning Commission for forced abortions and of babies delivered during such trips being thrown out of the vehicle into wild fields. As we were approaching our destination, they released me. After I got out, I was brought to the second floor of the building. There, I saw a number of female victims sitting on the benches in the corridor, their eyes filled with tears of anxiety, terror and sadness. In my panic to escape, I hurriedly started back down the same stairs, but a few steps down I could see guards at the bottom so I had to turn back. At this point the Family Planning Commission workers downstairs had discovered my attempt to escape, and came after me. Back upstairs, they found a woman dressed in white and wearing a surgical mask who told me to get on the delivery bed immediately. I refused, so they pinned me down on the bed by force. After the person in white pressed my belly with her hands and felt the position of my baby’s head, she stuck a big, long, fatal needle deep into my abdomen (possibly where the baby’s head was)…… “Stop thrashing around!” she ordered, then left.

By then, my unborn baby had already been murdered and I lost heart. Was there any point in trying to escape now? After a while, I felt my abdomen begin to bloat. In about an hour (I was not wearing a watch then) half of my baby’s body emerged. I had always been in poor health, and not having had breakfast that morning made me even weaker to deliver the baby. At this point, the person guarding me went to fetch a person in white who pulled the baby out and put it on a small table less than three feet away from me. It was a baby boy, with no tears, no cries and no mother’s cuddle, he was just left lying there naked and all alone. A while later the person in white, with some effort, removed my placenta which, together with the dead baby, was stuffed into a transparent plastic bag. They left without a single word.

About a half hour later, seeing nobody at my bedside, I got up. I saw that by the neighboring bed was a small table with the dead body of a male newborn. I turned to the woman lying on the bed and said, “You delivered a baby boy.” The woman said, “This baby would have been born in a day or two. I was abducted from my home in the countryside. I could have escaped if not for my mother-in-law who consulted a fortune-teller who said I was pregnant with a girl. She asked me more than once to abort my baby. When the people from Family Planning Commission showed up, I hesitated, and so I was captured. Thinking about it now, I’m full of regret.”

As I sat on the bench in the hallway after coming out of the delivery room, I longed to see my baby again before leaving. I noticed then a person in white going down the corridor carrying a bag. The person went around a corner, and then walked back. I waited a bit before going off to search. Oh! What I saw totally broke my heart. It wasn’t just a couple of dead babies but a big basket full of the dead bodies of newborns and trash. I couldn’t tell which one was mine. Right there, my heart filled with a need to avenge my son. I walked back to seats in the hallway to identify those killers in white. But these white uniformed murderers all wore facemasks with only a pair of watchful eyes exposed. They moved around in a strange pattern, showing up suddenly only when needed to commit the crime, never making a sound during the criminal act, and leaving immediately after each killing. This behavior indicated they knew what they were doing! At this point, hungry, exhausted, sad and angry, I had no choice but to leave this butchering ground.  Later I learned that this living hell was the Second People’s Hospital of Nanning City, formerly known as “Dongfanghong [East is Red] People’s Hospital.”
The day that I was abducted in the street, if the Family Planning Commission and the hospital had known it was my third pregnancy, I would have been also sterilized at the same time.  I refused to give them my name and address lest they do me more harm. As I left that evil place in the middle of the day, not a single person asked me any questions, nor did anyone give me any medical help. In this way, my experience of being seized by the Chinese Communist Party and forced to abort my child took place without any trace of a written record. I don’t want to say too much about this, but our Father in heaven understands me!

I’m from a poverty stricken mountain area and went to school only for a few days in first grade. (The other children picked on me because of my father’s bad political background).  With no more schooling, I was later married off in the city. As I am unable to write, I authorized Du Yiliang to write this oral “testimony” on my behalf.  I hereby swear to its truth as a fully responsible Christian.

A faithful Christian:
Guo Yanling
June 3, 2012
Contact phone numbers: 0860762388 / 0847268983


China Aid Contacts
Rachel Ritchie, English Media Director
Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.chinaaid.org

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Christian Woman Guo Yanling Testifies to Congress By Phone From Thailand About Her Forced Abortion Experience

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