She begs for mercy from the Government and tries desperately to save her unborn baby.

Gong Qifeng begs for mercy and fights; trying desperately to save her unborn baby.

But the Chinese Government has several people pinning her head, arms, knees and ankles to the hospital bed while they drive a syringe of labour-inducing drugs into her swollen pregnant belly. Thirty five hours later, while suffering excoriating pain, Gong Qifeng gives birth to a stillborn boy.

This is the memory that haunts Gong Qifeng every day; ultimately resulting in her being diagnosed with schizophrenia from the trauma of the experience.

So why would the Chinese Government do this to Qifeng?

Because Chinese Government policy gives them every right to forcibly abort a pregnancy if the mother already has a child (although they aren’t allowed to do this past the 5 month mark…but no-one is held accountable if it does). Even though China says their one-child-policy is easing, with couples who have no siblings being permitted to have more than one child now, stories like Qifeng’s continue to make their way out of the country‘s restrictive media regime and into the world’s view.

In a recent interview, Qifeng describes her ordeal, “It was the pain of my lifetime, worse than the pain of delivering a child. You cannot describe it, and it has become a mental pain. I feel like a walking corpse.”

Qifeng’s husband, Wu Yongyuan, says he wasn’t worried when they found out about Qifeng’s pregnancy despite already having a child. According to Yongyuan there were families in their village that have two or three children. It was only when the local family planning officials found out about her pregnancy that they came to take her away.

Qifeng returned a changed a woman. A doctor finally diagnosed her with schizophrenia which she regularly needs medical treatment. Yongyuan decided to advocate with local authorities to pay for his wife’s expensive medical treatment. However, they blamed her schizophrenia on her personality, not the trauma from the forced abortion they inflicted on her.

As a result Yongyuan and Qifeng travelled to Beijeng to take it up with higher officials.

Qifeng’s family isn’t the only one who has experienced the wrath of the one-child-policy.

It reaches everyone in China, poor and rich.

In the last days of 2013, it was reported that four women for the highly discriminated minority group, Uyghur, were forced to have abortions with one of them nine months into her pregnancy. Despite the fact that the one-child-policy doesn’t apply to them.

And this week, News Corp reported that Chinese film director, Zhang Yimou, with an average yearly income of $580,000 has 30 days to pay $1.2 million in fines for having three children aged 13, 10 and 8.

The fact that the one-child-policy impacts everyone is no comfort to Qifeng or her family. The higher officials they took the case up with sent them back to their village, with no resolution reported. And it is most likely that they won’t get a resolution to match the trauma or heartache this policy has caused Qifeng.

China might be far away, but the fact that this is happening in our world, right now, is horrific. Where is the justice for the women and families? Where is the international condemnation? And when will this end?

How can this gross violation of not only human rights but women’s rights continue in China?