How officials 'stole' children from parents

Updated: 2015-02-02 15:52

By Wu Yan(chinadaily.com.cn)

Photo taken on 2014 shows Xie Xianmei on the way to meet her parents. [Photo/newssc.org]

Eight years later, same tragedy occurred to Xie Xianmei, a native of Dazhou, about 400 km northwest of Jianyang, who has known herself an additional family member since childhood, China Youth Daily reported.

In May 12, 1991, the decision on strictly controlling the growth of population issued by China's cabinet took effect, which made the birth control an important indicator of the achievements in officials' career.

Xie was born just about one month after the implementation of the decision on June 20, 1991. She was reportedly "confiscated" by local family planning officials at the age of about four-month, because her parents could not afford 8,500 yuan ($1,361) social maintenance fee, a sky-high price for a villager charged randomly by the authority.

Until her foster father, a single man in his 30s, gave more than 200 yuan social maintenance fee to the local family planning office in that winter did Xie have a new family, China Youth Daily reported.

If it were not for Xie's resolution to seek her parents and the help of media, she would not know her life story or meet her biological parents in 2014. Her parents did not get any information about their daughter since she was taken away.

In Dazhou, the act of giving additional babies confiscated from their biological family to a single or childless couple was called "adjustment", which was seen as a local common practice in 1991, China Youth Daily reported.