This woman claims she was forcibly sterilized, causing her husband to leave her

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A former Chinese population control administrator says she felt like "a monster" during the 14 years she watched what she called China's brutal enforcement of its "one child per couple" policy.

Beijing says the policy is necessary for population control and that forced abortions and sterilizations are prohibited.

But Wednesday, lawmakers on Capitol Hill heard graphic testimony and saw a shocking video, both of which strongly counter China's official line on its role in family planning.

Gao Xiao Duan told Congressional lawmakers her office paid informants to report on unauthorized pregnancies of neighbors. Women who violated China's policy on pregnancy could be seized during a nighttime raid, or have their homes destroyed, as the government forced the offenders to submit to abortions, Gao said.

"I did so many brutal things," Gao told the House International Relations human rights subcommittee. "All those ... years I was a monster in the daytime, injuring others by carrying out the Chinese Communist authorities' barbaric planned birth policy."

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Gao said she "could not live such a dual life anymore." She quit her job in Fujian province's Yongwe township this year, fled China, and arrived in the United States in April, she said.

Human rights activist and China critic Harry Wu helped get Gao out of her homeland.

Gao smuggled documents she says proves forced abortion and sterilization

Gao's evidence

Gao showed lawmakers documents and a videotape she smuggled out of China. The items, she said, were evidence of China's brutal enforcement of its one-child policy. There is no independent confirmation to authenticate the items.

The videotape, played the lawmakers, showed an aborted fetus, a detention cell with bars, an operating room and a computer records center.

The videotape also told the story of a woman suspected of illegally having a baby and hiding it. The woman claimed the government forced her to be sterilized, and that her husband then beat her and left her, saying: "What good is a chicken who cannot lay an egg?"

"Whenever I saw these things my heart would break and I felt that to help a tyrant do evil was not what I wanted," Gao told the committee through an interpreter.

Wednesday's was the second hearing the House International Relations human rights subcommittee had called on China in a week.

House Republicans are turning up the pressure on the issue of China roughly two weeks before President Clinton is to depart for his visit there.

Many politicians and human rights activists are calling on Clinton to cancel his trip, saying that the U.S. policy of "constructive engagement" with China gives Beijing no incentive to change its alleged human rights abuses.

Gao

Congress's showdown on China

To date, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed eight bills banning Chinese products allegedly made by slave or convict labor, and barring U.S. travel by Chinese officials who engage in religious persecution or forced abortions. Senate action on the measures is pending.

The White House and Congress still face the battle of Clinton's proposal to extend China's most-favored nation trade status. Resolutions have been introduced to deny the extension, but the extension is expected to be granted.

White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said the White House has long been concerned about China's alleged human rights abuses, and that Clinton would likely discuss such allegations during his trip later this month.

"These are obviously practices that we consider abhorrent," McCurry said. "That will be part of the president's upcoming trip."

Clinton leaves for Beijing on June 25.