A group of Chinese family planning officials, visiting a couple in eastern China to make them pay a fine for having a second child, ran over and killed their 13-month-old boy, the People’s Daily reported yesterday.
Under China’s one-child policy, couples who have a second child are expected to pay a “social maintenance fee”.
In some cases, women have been coerced into having abortions while there have also been forced sterlisations of women.
A group of 11 officials from the Ruian Family Planning Bureau came to Dongshantou village near the wealthy city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province to collect the fine, and an argument ensued.
The mother, Li Yuhong, had agreed to return to Ruian with the officials to discuss the matter.
“The father, Chen Liandi, became upset,” a local government spokesman told a briefing in Ruian. “After the car started, the official discovered the child had been crushed beneath the car.”
The mother had been sitting in the car and the father was about to get in, the report said, although it was not made clear exactly how the infant was run over. The boy was taken to the Third People’s Hospital in Ruian, but it was too late to save him.
Population control
The one-child policy is not popular in China, but the government insists it is necessary to stop the population spinning out of control and leaving China unable to feed itself.
However, the way the policy is enforced regularly provokes outrage. In June, government officials were punished after a woman in Shaanxi province was forced to abort a seven-month-old foetus.
In May last year, authorities in Ruian levied the highest-ever fine for violating family planning rules, 1.3 million yuan (€150,000), to a couple who had a daughter in February last year after having a son in 1995.
