You Need to Watch ‘One Child Nation’ on Prime, An Eye-Opening Doc About China

Warning: This article contains descriptions of disturbing images from One Child Nation. 

Many have heard of China‘s “one-child policy,” a law intended to control China’s population growth by limiting parents to only having one child, which was officially in effect from 1979 to 2015. But perhaps most non-Chinese—and in particular, Americans—have not considered the devastating effects such a controlling policy would have on a nation’s citizens. They likely don’t realize, though in hindsight it makes sense, that such a law would lead to abandoned babies, dangerous abortions, forced adoptions, and human trafficking. That’s exactly what One Child Nation—a harrowing documentary now streaming on Amazon, free to all Prime subscribers—intends to correct.

Directed by Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, One Child Nation—which first premiered at Sundance where it won a Grand Jury prize—is not an easy watch. It is, at times, horrifically graphic—so much so that you’ll find yourself turning away from the screen. But, now that it is absolutely a vital watch, particularly in light of the recent news cycle regarding China’s media censorship.

Despite some of the morbid imagery, One Child Nation never feels like exploitation or manipulation. That’s because Wang—who serves as the film’s narrator, editor, and co-cinematographer, in addition to its co-director—makes it a deeply personal story, too. Wang, who was born in China in 1985, interviews her own family, including her younger brother. Had that brother been a girl, Wang’s own mother says, he would have been abandoned. Wang knows her parents had hoped she had been a boy—and even decided to keep her masculine name after she was born, hoping that she would live up to it.

Wang, now living in New York City as a filmmaker, returns to her hometown in the Jiangxi province of China as a new mother of a baby boy. She speaks to her mother—her father died when she was little—and some long-time residents of the town, who describe how the one-child policy was enacted. The picture of fear and government propaganda that comes together grows more and more disturbing the wider it gets. The Chinese government used a special task force to enforce the new law; families who didn’t comply would lose their homes and possessions. Pregnant women were forced to have abortions they didn’t want while fertile women were forced to undergo sterilization. Wang speaks to a midwife who performed some of those abortions, who says she performed some late-term abortions by inducing labor and killing the babies after they were born. In dumps, one artist attests, you could find bags and bags of fetuses, and he has the pictures to prove it.

Rural families like Wang’s were allowed a second child if their first child was a girl, but urban families were not. As a result, some families abandoned infant baby girls on the street. Wang speaks to people who spent all their free time driving up and down the streets, rescuing babies — which, in some cases, led to horrific networks of black market adoptions and human trafficking.

The story that Wang and Zhang so expertly unfurl is raw, horrifying, excruciating, and infuriating. Your blood will boil as the film comes to a close and Wang compares the government propaganda that was once used to promote this devastatingly destructive policy—”One child is best!”—to the new slogan, now that policy has officially ended: “Two children are best!” This, Wang explains, is to address the growing crisis of too many aging parents and not enough young, healthy children to care for them.

Not everyone Wang speaks to shares her anger—in fact, many, many Chinese citizens believe the one-child policy saved their country from economic despair. Wang also makes clear that China is not the only nation that exercises authoritarian control over women’s bodies; certainly, the United States can’t claim to be holier than thou on that front. That’s an important takeaway from the film that should not be overlooked. One Child Nation is by no means arguing for pro-life causes—in fact, quite the opposite. It’s to hold an institution accountable for a policy that oppressed millions, women especially and ruined more lives than is perhaps possible to calculate yet. You might, as I did, find yourself crying as you watch it. I can’t think of another film more deserving of your attention right now.

Watch One Child Nation on Prime Video