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Parents protest weak support after child loss

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2015-05-06 08:41Global Times Editor: Qian Ruisha

Family planning policy previously prevented second births

Over 600 parents who lost their only child gathered in Beijing on Tuesday to appeal to the government to live up to its responsibility in supporting them.

The parents from 29 provinces gathered in front of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, asking the bureau to answer their appeal, a representative surnamed Sun, 58, who lost his only son in 2009, told the Global Times.

They asked the government to treat them as contributors to the nation who followed family planning policy requiring them to have only one child, instead of being categorized as "difficult families under the family planning policy," a term used by central authorities when referring to this group.

The protesters also asked the government to create an organization that would help address their problems, Sun said.

Officials from the commission met with the representatives but gave no clear answer to their demands, according to Sun.

The commission could not be reached for comments as of press time.

This is not the first appeal to the government by parents who lost their only child. In 2012, a formal letter requesting more support sent to the then-National Ministry of Health received no reply. In April 2014, 240 parents came to Beijing to ask the commission to answer the letter.

According to statistics released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2013, as of 2010 over 1 million families had lost their only child. The academy projected that the number would reach 2.7 million by 2030, and 11 million by 2050.

In December 2013, health authorities decided to raise subsidies to parents above 49-year-old who had lost their only child to 340 yuan ($54) for urban residents and 170 yuan for rural residents. But Lu Jiehua, a professor of sociology with Peking University told the Legal Mirror newspaper that the government currently only provides aid as a form of charity, rather than as a formal part of China's social welfare system.

The one-child policy was introduced in China in 1978 and enacted on September 18, 1980 to limit population growth by restricting urban married couples from having a second child.

In November 2014, the government eased the policy by allowing couples to have a second child if one of the parents is an only child.

"The social insurance system or organizations for the aged in China are imperfect which makes their life difficult when they have no child to provide them with physical and mental support," Ma Li, director of the China Population and Development Research Center, told the Global Times.

Some of the parents joined together to form non-government organizations to help care for each other.

Yuan He, a founder of one such organization in Hunan Province, told news portal thepaper.cn that their group has helped many parents to move past their sorrow at the loss of a child, and work to protect their rights in an organized way.

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