China: Violate one-child policy, get sterilized

According to the UK's Times Online, one county in China is in the midst of a campaign to sterilize 10,000 men and women who have violated the country's draconian one-child policy.

Family planning authorities are so determined to stop couples from producing more children than the regulations allow that they are detaining the relatives of those who resist.

About 1,300 people are being held in cramped conditions in towns across Puning county, in Guangdong Province, as officials try to put pressure on couples who have illegal children to come forward for sterilisation.

The 20-day campaign, which was launched on April 7, aims to complete 9,559 sterilisations in Puning, which, with a population of 2.24 million, is the most populous county in the province.

A doctor in Daba village said that his team was working flat out, beginning sterilisations every day at 8am and working straight through until 4am the following day.

I wonder if Thomas Friedman thinks forced sterilization is one of "politically difficult but critically important policies" put in place by the "reasonably enlightened group of people" leading China.