English - CEDAW Southeast Asia

CEDAW and the Law:
to choose family planning methods. 740 As such, responsibilities are placed on the State and its
agencies to issue policies and take measures that facilitate popular acceptance of family
planning methods. 741 Health, cultural, educational institutes, the mass media and relevant
mass organizations are duty bound to promote education on population and family planning. 742
Article 2 of the Marriage and Family Law also states as one of the basic principles of the
marriage and family regime being that husband and wife are obliged to implement the
population and family planning policy. The Population Ordinance and Decree on Population
also identify family planning as an obligation. Family planning is defined by the Population
Ordinance in Article 3(9) as “the State’s and society’s efforts to enable every individual and
couple to actively and voluntarily decide on the number of children, the time to have babies
and the duration between child births in order to protect their health and raise their children
with a sense of responsibility and in conformity with social standards and families’ living
conditions.”
Family planning policies and measures.
Article 9 of the Population Ordinance regards family planning as a primary measure to readjust
the birth rate and as a consequence contribute to ensuring prosperous, equitable, progressive
and happy lives. The National Strategy on Reproductive Health Care for 2001-2010 Period
states that one of its objectives is to sustain the fertility reduction trend, to ensure the rights of
women and couples to have children and select contraceptive methods of good quality, and to
reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortion-related complications. 743 It targets a fertility rate of
two children for women of reproductive age. The Law on People’s Health provides that each
couple should have one to two children. 744 The Decree on Population also states that each
couple and individual has the obligation to adopt a family size with few children; that is, one or
two children. 745 The Resolution No. 47-NQ/TW of March 2005 reaffirmed the policy that
married couples are encouraged to have only one or two children. This policy is imposed on
public sector employees, who are subject to higher health-care costs, reduced salary
increases and less access to employment benefits, such as housing for non-compliance. 746
312
The following are considered to be family planning measures: (a) mobilizing and
assisting individuals and couples to apply family planning actively and voluntarily; (b) providing
quality, convenient and safe family planning services directly for people; (c) offering material
and moral incentives and implementing insurance policies so as to encourage application of
family planning. The following are population services: (a) supply of information, means
products relating to work on propagation, campaigning, education and counselling on
population; (b) provision of contraceptive means; (c) reproductive health care and family
740
Law on Health, Article 43(1)
741
Ibid., Article 43(2)
742
Ibid., Article 43
743
Decision on Reproductive Health Care
744
Law on Health, Article 43(1)
745
Decree on Population, Article 17
746
Long, op. cit., p. 23
Review of key legal documents and compliance with CEDAW