Chinese family fined $1.10 lakh for violating one-child policy

Beijing: A Chinese family with seven children has been slapped with a hefty fine of $110,180 for violating the country's controversial one-child policy, resurfacing concerns over the stringent family planning policy that was relaxed recently.

The couple in Beijing's Tongzhou district have three boys and four girls since 1984 without a proper residential permit called hukau.

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 ($110,180) for four children who still have no hukou as a fine for violating the country's three-decade old family planning policy.

The fine was based on the annual income of rural residents in 2012, and also includes an overdue surcharge, state-run Beijing News reported.

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.

Zhang Zelong, the third child who got his hukou in July, told another state-run daily Global Times that four of the seven siblings 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.

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. Thousands of couples were fined and punished for violation of the stringently implemented one-child policy which was recently relaxed to couples born in one-child policy to have a second child.

The policy relaxation followed the demographic crisis being faced by China with steady growth of the older population.