Provincial family planning officials arrested and illegally detained three people, and a 10-month-old baby, for failing to pay a fine imposed on those who have children without government permission. The group was released by local police. Although Beijing talks about a “more flexible” one-child policy, abuses continue.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Three villagers and a 10-month-old baby were illegally detained in Shandong province by local population control authorities because they failed to pay a 140,000-yuan (US$ 22,000) fine for violating the one-child policy, mainland media reported.

The illegal detention was brought to public attention after a video was posted online, showing the detainees, who had been locked in a house behind two gates, as they were freed by police.

The public security bureau in Shandong's Junan County, near Linxi city, confirmed the authenticity of the video and that police freed the family on November 25 after receiving a report on the incident, Shanghai-based news website Thepaper.cn reported.

"A few days ago, several people who had had children in violation of one-child rules, and their relatives in Tuanlin town, Lingang district of Linxi city, were illegally detained by the local family planning office for 120 hours in a house in Junan County's Xihonggou village. The public security bureau hurried to the scene and rescued the four people . . . including an infant of just 10 months," read the caption in the video.

The almost-three-minute video showed a woman opening two gates - the second gate with three locks on it - and entering the courtyard accompanied by four policemen. "Thank you, thank you. [The baby is] 10 months old. They asked for 140,000 yuan," said the sobbing woman, who was carrying the child.

According to Thepaper.cn, the baby is the third child of a 39-year-old woman, Zhang Yongling. She and her husband Liu Tao already had two children. When they were arrested, they were dragged into a minivan by about seven employees from the family planning office. Another villager, Tang Jingyin, was also detained in the inn, the report said. He too has three children.

From 1979 onwards, China has implemented a one-child policy to boost on its economic development. Eventually, only ethnic minorities and farmers were allowed to have a second child if the first child was a girl. Implementation of the law has often been violent, with exorbitant fines imposed on violators, and even forced sterilisation and near-term abortions. Family planning officials have often been rewarded for enforcing that the law and respecting population quotas; however, this opened the door to corruption and abuses of power.

Since December 2013, after rule were relaxed, couples in which one spouse is a single child can have two children. In any case, the new policy still remains limited even from a geographical point of view: it will benefit only the inhabitants of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing and those of the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Anhui, Sichuan, Guangdong and Jiangsu.

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