Population Planning Officials Punished for "Misuse of Authority" in Shaanxi Province

Government authorities punished 13 officials in Shaanxi province after a woman was found to have given birth to nine children, according to a May 5 Xinhua report. Investigators found that a family planning official and a village head took bribes from the woman and her husband, supplied them with fraudulent documents, and forged the woman's contraception records. Xinhua reported that the two officials were detained for "misuse of authority" and 11 other family planning and township officials were dismissed "for negligence and other reasons."

Population planning officials rigorously control the reproductive lives of Chinese women, enforcing a policy that limits most women to one child and is marked by mandatory birth permits and contraception, and coerced sterilization and abortion. China's Population and Family Planning Law requires officials to "perform their administrative duties strictly in accordance with law" (Article 4) and provides that population planning officials may be subject to criminal punishment for "abusing [their] power... demanding or accepting bribes..." (Article 39).

Credible reports by eyewitnesses, investigators and foreign analysts allege that the government’s population planning policy has resulted in widespread corruption that takes various forms. In December 2004, witnesses testified to the Committee on International Relations of the U.S. House of Representatives that population planning officials sometimes accept bribes to provide couples birth permit certificates, fake sterilization certificates, and fake contraception records. The same Congressional committee heard testimony that population planning officials sometimes abuse their authority to exact fines. In 2005 in Shandong province, local officials of Linyi city profited from an illegal system in which local officials detained thousands of people and charged them fees to attend "population schools" which forced them or their relatives to submit to abortions or sterilization procedures, according to news media reports cited by the U.S. State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - China for 2005 (see Section 1.f). In March 2006 in Hunan province, about 60 villagers signed a petition accusing local population planning officials of taking 12 children away from their parents and demanding money for their return.

Chinese news media reported the surnames and punishments of the Shaanxi officials who violated population policy by permitting a woman to bear children. In the case of the Shandong officials who violated population planning policy by preventing women from bearing children, however, Chinese news media reported only that unnamed officials had been punished, and foreign journalists could not confirm that any officials had in fact been sanctioned, according to a February 2006 Guardian (London) report.

Credible reports exist of widespread physical abuse in enforcing China's population planning policy, such as the testimony given to the Committee on International Relations described above, and other reports of abuse that the Chinese government reported in September 2005. Chinese officials have punished citizens who have drawn attention to abuses committed by population planning officials, such as Chen Guangcheng, who is currently in detention, and Mao Hengfeng.

For more information on Chen Guangcheng and Mao Hengfeng, see the CECC's Political Prisoner Database. For more information on population planning in China, see the CECC 2005 Annual Report, Section III(i).