Couple Fined $94,000 for One-Child Rule Lapse

[rice cracker]

BEIJING (Reuters) - A court in China's southern boomtown of Shenzhen has fined a couple 780,000 yuan ($94,250) and sealed off their house for having more than one child, the Beijing Morning Post said Monday.



The pair were among nine couples who were fined "social fostering fees" for their extra children, the newspaper said. They had their first boy in 1997 and last year had twin boys, the newspaper said.


With approximately 1.3 billion people, China is the world's most populous nation. It has stringent rules on family planning that allow couples usually to have just one child, at least in cities, and limit numbers elsewhere.


The couple's house had been sealed up "according to the law," the paper said, or until they pay the fine which was unusually large. A house is sealed with a white paper bearing the stamp of a local court pasted across the front door.


Punishment for having more than one child can include having the power to the offending couple's house or to the houses of relatives being cut off.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=583&ncid=583&e=2&u=/nm/20040920/od_nm/china_child_dc

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Meanwhile, U.S. continues to give parents who have five children and no job free food and medical care.





Totally wish I could claim the wittiscm, but alas, I'm stealing it from fark.com.

[truMp]

china should ban the one child only rule, it's going to eliminate a large future populous of chinese

[Tao]

china should ban the one child only rule, it's going to eliminate a large future populous of chinese
who's gonna support all those people? you?

[truMp]

who's gonna support all those people? you?

my solution: ship them off to other nations; secret imperialistic plot in which we rise to arms after inhabiting the country and growing a formidable size group in each one.

[Tao]

my solution: ship them off to other nations; secret imperialistic plot in which we rise to arms after inhabiting the country and growing a formidable size group in each one.
that's not an option, since most of the world have very tight immigration laws placed on china. the only ppl allowed to the us from china are grad students from the top chinese universities, or business men with loads of cash.

[tvbdude]

I'm gonna bring down the damn chinese government by shooting every government official

[yoMAMA]

I'm gonna bring down the damn chinese government by shooting every government official


Good for you.

But just in case, you better have a shitload of AK 47 and Anti Tank rockets.

:wink:

[asvenus]

yeah good luck tvbdude...i personally think the ban should be lifted on the 'one' child rule, just because of the ramifications it has for families who go over it and also for families that still deem having a son worthier than a girl...this is why immigration rules and the like are a load of shit...there IS more than enough food and space for us all on the world, the problem lies wiht how it is divided up, and all the bureacracy regarding who 'can' go where etc...i think its great that China's population continues to be one of the largest even with measures such as these in place and look forward to the day when the ban is lifted

[SunWuKong]

the one-child rule has been continually becoming more relaxed. and the statistics for the girl-to-boy ratio is not as bad is it is in reality, because many families simply don't report a birth if it's a girl, so officially they don't have that child and wouldn't be fined.

there IS more than enough food and space for us all on the world, the problem lies wiht how it is divided up, and all the bureacracy regarding who 'can' go where etc...

there is definitely an unfair distribution of resources and land in this world, however, while there is enough space and perhaps food for everybody, there may not be enough resources for everybody. for one thing, only 3% of the world's water is drinkable. and don't forget, population grows at an exponential rate.

[Faithless]

china should ban the one child only rule, it's going to eliminate a large future populous of chinese
So, maybe they're making a change?

China considers making changes to one-child policy (http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/02/01/2003221823)

DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFT: China was aiming to limit population growth, but is now facing the prospect of an aging population, and few daughters born

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , Anxi, China * Tuesday, Feb 01, 2005,Page 5

For farming families in the lush mountains of coastal Fujian province, the famous crop is oolong tea and the favorite source of labor is sons. The leafy bushes of tea fill the hillsides the same way young boys fill the village streets.

There is such a glut of boys here -- roughly 134 are born for every 100 girls -- that the imbalance has forced an unlikely response from the Chinese government. To persuade more families to have girls, it has decided in some cases to pay families that already have daughters.

The Communist Party is often vilified for its so-called one-child policy. The government credits the policy for sharply slowing China's population growth, but critics say it is a major reason many families now use prenatal scans and selective abortions to make certain that the single child they are permitted is a boy.

Today, China has one of the world's worst cases of "missing" girls. Until recent years, the government largely ignored or denied the problem. Last March, President Hu Jintao declared it must be solved by 2010. Government officials now have declared that sex-selective abortions will become a criminal offense. Such abortions were already banned, but doctors often accepted bribes from parents who wanted to guarantee a boy.

Government officials are hardly backing away from population control. But the government is examining various possible changes. Last year, the State Council, China's Cabinet, appointed a research group of 250 demographers and other experts to examine issues like imbalance between the sexes, dropping fertility rates and ways to prepare for China's rapidly aging population. It may also address whether and when China should move to a nationwide two-child policy to prevent a looming baby bust.

Hao Linna, spokeswoman for the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said, "We need to study how to shift, in what form and what method."

Yet government officials agree that reversing the birth imbalance between boys and girls cannot be postponed. Experts debate to what extent China's population policy should be blamed for the problem, noting that the problem predates the one-child policy. Other Asian countries like India and South Korea without such policies also have lopsided birth rates. But statistics show that China's imbalance has widened since population controls began in the late 1970s.

In early January, the government announced that the nationwide ratio had reached 119 boys for every 100 girls. Studies show that the average rate for the rest of the world is about 105 boys for every 100 girls. Demographers predict that in a few decades China could have up to 40 million bachelors unable to find mates.

On a recent afternoon here in southeastern China, hundreds of students in the dirt courtyard of Lanxi Middle School held a parade rehearsal. About 60 percent of students in the higher grades are male. The marchers, mostly boys, waved flags and kicked dust in the air beside a billboard promoting the latest propaganda campaign: Respect Girls.

China's population policy long ago ceased to be a true one-child rule. In broad terms, urban families, with exceptions, are usually limited to one child, while rural families are allowed a second child if the first is a girl. Minority families, meanwhile, are sometimes allowed three or more children to keep their populations from declining.

In the rural Fujian Mountains, the pressure on families to have a boy as a second child is enormous. On what should have been one of the happiest days of her life, the birth of her second child, Liao Yanqing said, she instead contemplated suicide because the baby was another girl.

"I felt I couldn't hold up my head walking in the village," she recalled. Her family is now one of a handful that has gotten government grants for having two girls, money the Liaos have used to buy a new house and a small restaurant. Both girls now go to school free of charge."It has been quite a dramatic change," she said.

[Faithless]

Recently read that China is sticking to its guns with the one-child policy. Nevertheless, some couples are desperate to have multiple births.

Should governments have the right to control population growth?

Many women are using fertility treatment because they cannot conceive, but others do so in a deliberate attempt to bear more babies, the report says.

Fertility drug use booms in China (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4708432.stm)

Monday, 13 February 2006, 13:20 GMT

Wealthy couples in China are turning to fertility drugs in growing numbers, with a report suggesting some may be using it to beat the one child policy.

One hospital has reportedly seen the number of women giving birth to twins or triplets soar in recent years.

For the last 25 years China has sought to curb the growth of its vast population by restricting many couples to having just one child.

However, exceptions are made in the cases of multiple births such as twins.

According to a report in the China Daily, a hospital in the eastern city of Nanjing has seen the number of twins and triplets jump from a yearly average of 20 sets to 90 sets in 2005.

"More women are taking fertility medicine to help them become pregnant," Gu Ling, director of the Maternal and Child Hygiene Hospital in Nanjing, told the paper.

Sexes imbalance

The trend is also being seen among well-off couples in other cities around China, the report says.

Many women are using fertility treatment because they cannot conceive, but others do so in a deliberate attempt to bear more babies, the report says.

The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Beijing says that the sale of fertility drugs to people without a prescription is illegal, but that does not seem to be stopping anyone.

Many pharmacies in cities like Nanjing sell the drugs freely, without ever demanding a prescription, the China Daily said.

China launched its one-child policy in 1970 and claims it has been successful in slowing the growth of the country's ballooning population, which currently stands at over 1.3 billion.

However, human rights groups say the policy has taken a toll in forced abortions and sterilisation and even infanticide.

Additionally, a preference for boys has created a massive imbalance in the ratio of male to female children.