Family faces 700,000-yuan fine for one child violations
Concerns over China's family planning policy have resurfaced after a family of nine, including seven children, in Beijing is being fined 700,000 yuan ($110,180), a report said Thursday.
The couple in Beijing's Tongzhou district started having children in 1984. By 2004, three boys and four girls have been living in poverty. Apart from the first three children, four have been living without a hukou, China's household registration certificate, because the family has failed to pay the social maintenance fee as a fine for violating the country's family planning policy.
According to a document released last year by the local population and family planning commission, the family has to pay a fine of nearly 700,000 yuan for the four children who still have no hukou. The fine was based on the annual income of rural residents in 2012, and also includes an overdue surcharge, reported The Beijing News.
Zhang Zelong, the third child who got his hukou in July, told the Global Times that four of the seven have dropped out of school after nine years of compulsory education before they acquired hukou, and the two youngest children who are primary school students may also need to drop out in the future.
"Without a good education, I can only find odd jobs in small factories," Zhang said.
The hukou is the official record to identify a person in the Chinese mainland and offers the holder social services such as free education, healthcare and other benefits.
Hospitals have also refused to treat Zhang's undocumented siblings. Since his younger sister did not have her hukou, she could not get marriage certificate, thus her children will be facing the same problems which have been plaguing the family for years.
"My sister got divorced because of this and now she is suffering from depression," Zhang said.
"It's quite rare to see six 'black' kids in one family, the parents should be held responsible for that," Hou Dongmin, a professor at the Renmin University of China, told The Beijing News.
The newspaper also quoted a local official as saying that the family has been repeatedly informed about the potential penalty, and the local authorities turned a blind eye to the family.
