Relaxation of China's one-child policy: Change stirs up painful memories for many

Xiangcheng (Henan) - It may have happened 24 years ago, but the villager in central Henan province remembers clearly the date she aborted her five-month-old male foetus. "Ba yue chu er," said the 57-year-old woman who wanted to be known only as Madam Zhang, referring to the second day of the eighth lunar month in 1989.

The night before that day, more than 80 people, led by the village leaders, had descended upon her house in a village that is about a 20-minute drive from Xiangcheng city, demanding that she undergo an abortion, recounted Madam Zhang.

Someone had tipped off the authorities about her pregnancy, which violated the one-child policy. She and her husband already have a girl, born in 1983, and a boy who was born three years later, and wanted another son.

"Those people were dismantling our rooftop and grabbing our farming equipment and blankets to force us to agree to an abortion," she told The Sunday Times, standing outside the same house where the incident took place.

"Of course I still remember the date. How does one forget such an experience?" said Madam Zhang, who takes comfort now that her two children have given her five grandchildren.

China's decision to relax its one-child policy may have brought cheer to many young couples. But for older couples, especially those in the countryside like Madam Zhang, news of the impending change has evoked only painful memories.

Since the policy was implemented in 1979, millions have paid hefty fines - known as "social support fees"- for violating the one-child policy or undergone forced abortions and sterilisation at the hands of local officials keen to fulfil the central government's birth targets. The fine can be several times a person's annual income.

Official statistics show that at least 335 million government- approved abortions and 200 million sterilisations have taken place.

And such practices are reportedly continuing to this day, even in the countryside where the policy has been relaxed for rural folk if their first child is a girl. Earlier this month, farmer Ai Guangdong, 45, who had five children, killed himself by drinking pesticide at a Communist Party chief's house after officials in northern Hebei province seized his family's annual food supply for violating the policy.

In August this year, Mr Guo Xingcong, 59, of south-western Yunnan province, also died by taking pesticide after officials allegedly forced him to undergo sterilisation, according to media reports.

His son, Zhengcai, accused the local family planning authorities of having harassed his parents since 2006 to be sterilised, even though both said they were too old to have more children.

"My family has never exceeded the birth quota. There are two children in our family. I am the younger one, and will soon be 26," he said. It's clear that this is about getting money, because they charge a fine in lieu of sterilisation."

Chinese demographer He Yafu estimates that about US$330 billion (S$419 billion) of fines have been collected since the policy was put in place.

Family planning officials across China last year collected US$2.8 billion in "social support fees". Much of these fees are collected illegally from unsuspecting or hapless parents willing to pay money to get the nod to have a second child.

A Xiangcheng farmer, 34, who gave her name only as Madam Zhang, said her family had to pay a 2,000 yuan (S$400) fine when she gave birth to a boy four years ago. She and her husband also have a daughter, now 10. "It could have been 8,000 yuan if we hadn't pulled some strings with the local officials to lower the fine," she told The Sunday Times.

Yet, as a farmer, she is allowed a second child as her first was a girl, thanks to a relaxation of the law in the mid-1980s.

The lack of transparency in where the money goes to has fanned public anger in China.

Lawyer Wu Youshui in coastal Zhejiang province, who in July this year pressed all 31 provinces to disclose the amount of fines they collected, was told that "the fines were often either returned to village and township governments as rewards, or kept by county family planning commission officials "for their own expenses".

The policy has become a cash cow for more than 500,000 family planning officials. With the policy facing its last days, the fear is that these officials may step up efforts to make money while they still can.

How they will behave will depend on the population control targets that the central government sets for them and how stringently it punishes those who fail to meet them, noted Time magazine in an article on Nov 19.

A 36-year-old family planning official, who works in central Anhui province and wanted to be known only as Ms Hong, said she is not worried about her livelihood despite uncertainty over the one- child policy even as she defended her job.

"These allegations are not true, at least not in Anhui where we follow the law. Also, I believe we are still needed... as the people will require public health services like sterilisation. If not, the government will surely have to redeploy us to other positions," she told The Sunday Times.

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