{"id":18617,"date":"2019-06-07T08:37:25","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T15:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=films&#038;p=18617"},"modified":"2025-05-20T10:45:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T17:45:31","slug":"one-child-nation","status":"publish","type":"films","link":"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/one-child-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"One Child Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">China\u2019s one-child policy, the extreme population control measure that made it illegal for couples to have more than one child, may have ended in 2015, but the process of dealing with the trauma of its brutal enforcement is only just beginning. From award-winning documentarian Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, <\/span><b><i>One Child Nation<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> explores the ripple effects of this devastating social experiment, uncovering one shocking human rights violation after another \u2014 from abandoned newborns (almost always girls), to forced sterilizations and abortions to government abductions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the film unfolds, Wang, a native of China, digs fearlessly into her own personal life, weaving her experience as a new mother and the firsthand accounts of her relatives with archival propaganda material and testimony from victims and perpetrators alike, yielding a revelatory and essential record of this chilling moment in human civilization.\u00a0 One Child Nation reveals how the Chinese government\u2019s relentless campaign of propaganda brainwashed its citizens into committing unspeakable crimes and serves as a harrowing indictment of the mindset that prioritizes national agenda over human life. Featured is the midwife who delivered Nanfu and all of the babies in her village, who estimates that she performed 60,000 abortions while the policy was in effect. Most unsettling is the testimony of one of China\u2019s most decorated family planning officials who, in clinical detail, explains how she executed her mandate. Traveling from village to village, she sterilized women and performed abortions, many on women who resisted and had to be caught and restrained. But, \u201cIf I could go back in time, I would do it again,\u201d she says in the film.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China\u2019s one-child policy, the extreme population control measure that made it illegal for couples to have more than one child, may have ended in 2015, but the process of dealing with the trauma of its brutal enforcement is only just beginning. From award-winning documentarian Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, One Child Nation explores the ripple [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":18697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"topic":[1261,1239,1225,1227,1293],"class_list":["post-18617","films","type-films","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","topic-human-rights","topic-identity","topic-politics-and-government","topic-women-and-girls","topic-youth-and-family"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>One Child Nation - Independent Lens<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The ripple effects of this devastating social experiment, uncovers one shocking human rights violation after another \u2014 from abandoned newborns to forced sterilizations and abortions to government abductions.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/one-child-nation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ONE CHILD NATION | The impacts of China&#039;s one-child policy | Independent Lens | PBS\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The ripple effects of this devastating social experiment, uncovers one shocking human rights violation after another \u2014 from abandoned newborns to forced sterilizations and abortions to government abductions.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/one-child-nation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Independent Lens\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-05-20T17:45:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/one-child-nation-nanfufamily-sig.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"ONE CHILD NATION | The impacts of China&#039;s one-child policy | Independent Lens | PBS\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"The ripple effects of this devastating social experiment, uncovers one shocking human rights violation after another \u2014 from abandoned newborns to forced sterilizations and abortions to government abductions.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/one-child-nation\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/one-child-nation\/\",\"name\":\"One Child Nation - 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