A fine of US$ 100,000 for a second child
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – A former member of a government advisory body in Xiaochang County (Hubei) has been ordered to pay 765,500 yuan (US$ 100,000) in fines for flouting the one-child policy. Li Shaoqing, who is also the chairman of a county cement company, had been dumped from the Xiaochang County Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the top government advisory body in the area, because he fathered a second child in 2006.
The fines imposed on Mr Li are believed to be the highest ever since the controversial law was introduced in 1979.
The one-child policy, which has seen violators subjected to harsh treatment ranging from forced abortions to demolition of homes, especially in rural areas, has been at the centre of an international controversy for years.
But broad social changes have led to relaxation and a jump in the number of violations among the rich and famous, who often take advantage of lax enforcement to pay their way out of trouble when they are found to have more than one child, setting off protests against the inequality in the application of the law.
In 2006 1,678 officials, celebrities and rich people in Hubei alone were found to be in violation of the law.
For this reason Beijing is trying to impose exemplary fines and tough disciplinary sanctions.
Hubei family planning official Jiang Zhongsan said that even fines in the hundreds of thousands of yuan were nothing to the rich and his organisation “could do little to deter such violations.”
Mr Jiang added that loopholes in the law were behind the violations, with some officials maintaining a mistress to flout the policy.
The law has also come in for criticism because it is leading to the aging of the population as a one-child generation will soon have to take on the burden of an elderly population.
The government continues instead to praise the population control measure as a way to guarantee the country’s economic development.
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22/09/2016 11:02
