13 punished for family planning failure
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-05-05 16:21
XI'AN -- Two local officials in northwestern China's Shaanxi Province have
been detained for the misuse of authority and 11 others were dismissed from
office after a woman was found to have given birth nine times in the last 23
years, the police said Friday.
Investigation found that an official
surnamed Fang who in charge of family planning in Cigou Township, Ankang City,
and the head of Huang'an village applied for a "second birth" permission for the
woman Tang Guoying and her husband Zhang Yunqing with fake documents in late
1997.
The village head surnamed Yu took bribes from the couple and
sought help from Fang before the application was approved.
Yu forged the
record of conception control for the woman in 1995 when she had already given
seven births.
Tang Guoying, 40, has given nine births since she began
living with Zhang Yunqing in 1982 when she was only 16. Two of their daughters
were adopted by relatives and another three children died young.
Another
11 officials including township heads and family planning staff were stripped
off their posts for negligence and other reasons, the police said without giving
details.
Earlier, Director of the National Population and Family
Planning Commission Zhang Weiqing warned that the government will not slacken
its family planning law enforcement and will continue to punish those who break
it.
China started to practice its family planning policy in the early
1970s. Without the policy it's estimated there would have been 400 million more
people in the country.
Government statistics show that there are an
average of 1.8 children per couple in China. In the 1970s Chinese families were
averaging six children per couple when the family planning policy was first
introduced.
China's family planning policy known has the "one-child
family" policy allows for some leniency. An urban couple, if both husband and
wife are the only child of their families, can have a second child. Farmers in
many provinces are allowed to have a second child if their first child is a
girl.
Rural families in Yunnan, Qinghai, and Hainan provinces, and the
Ningxia and Xinjiang autonomous regions can have two children. And there is no
limit for rural families in Tibet.
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