Family Planning and Shandong

Refugee Review Tribunal AUSTRALIA RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE Research Response Number: CHN34945 Country: China Date: 22 May 2009 Keywords: China – Family Planning and Shandong This response was prepared by the Research & Information Services Section of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the RRT within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. This research response may not, under any circumstance, be cited in a decision or any other document. Anyone wishing to use this information may only cite the primary source material contained herein. Questions 1. Please advise whether second children are denied household registration in Shandong? How would the parents obtain a registration? 2. How strictly is the one child policy enforced in Shandong? 3. Please advise to what extent are second children denied access to services in Shandong – either with or without registration? RESPONSE 1. Please advise whether second children are denied household registration in Shandong? How would the parents obtain a registration? A September 2005 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) report states that an out of plan child born overseas would be able to gain household registration in Shandong if the parents pay a compensation fee. DFAT provide the following advice on family planning penalties and household registration in Shandong province: A. Chapter 6 of Shandong Province Family Planning Regulations covers penalties (―compensation fees‖) for out-of-plan births (see http://www.cpirc.org.cn/zcfg/zcfg_detail.asp?id=1699 in Chinese only). For urban residents, the compensation fee is half to ten times the previous years average per capita disposable income for urban residents in the province or half to ten times the person‘s actual income in the previous year, whichever is higher. For rural residents, the fee is half to ten times the previous years average per capita net income for rural residents of the province or half to ten times the person‘s actual income in the previous year, whichever is higher. The size of the penalty depends on the nature of the case and severity of violation of the regulations. …D. The Shandong Family Planning Commission told us that the National Family Planning Commission (NFPC) had separate regulations regarding Chinese nationals resident in other countries. The NFPC told us it had circulated an ―internal regulation‖ (i.e. not for public distribution) to Chinese Embassies saying that students studying overseas were allowed a second child, but would have to pay penalties (at the level set by the province) for a third and any subsequent children. Regulations covering the application of the national Population and Family Planning Law to Chinese citizens who were permanent residents of other countries or were working overseas were yet to be finalised. E. The child [which was born in Australia and is the third child of Chinese couple from Shandong] would be able to register for a residence permit (“hukou”), provided her parents paid the compensation fee outlined in paragraph A. The Shandong Family Planning Commission told us that all births must be registered with local public security authorities (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 2005, DFAT Report 404 – RRT Information Request: CHN17471, 6 September – Attachment 1; for the Tribunal enquiry which elicited this response, see: RRT Country Research 2005, Email to DFAT ‗RRT Country Information Request – China: CHN17471 – Shandong Family Planning Regulations – Jinan City‘, 9 August – Attachment 2). No other information was found in the sources consulted regarding household registration in Shandong for second children or children born out of plan. 2. How strictly is the one child policy enforced in Shandong? The following reports were found in the sources consulted regarding the enforcement of family planning in Shandong province. The articles report on abuses by family planning officials in Shandong including detentions, forced abortions and forced sterlisations. The 2008 US Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) report contains some information on abuses by family planning officials in Shandong. The report states that in April 2008 a woman in Shandong was detained and beaten by family planning officials in order to compel the woman‘s sister to abort an unauthorised pregnancy. The report also contains information on Chen Guangcheng, an advocate who was sentenced to four years imprisonment in 2006, who had protested against widespread abuses by family planning officials in Linyi city, Shandong. The report states that Chen Guangcheng‘s wife, Yuan Weijing confirmed that ―cases of forced abortion and other abuses have resurfaced in Shandong in 2008‖. The CECC provide the following information on family planning in Shandong: In April 2008, population planning officials in the town of Zhubao in Shandong province ‗detained and beat‘ the sister of a woman who had illegally conceived a second child, in an attempt to compel the pregnant woman to undergo an abortion. Chen Guangcheng, a legal advocate and rights defender from nearby Linyi city, was sentenced to more than four years in prison in 2006 for exposing widespread abuses by local family planning officials. In April 2008, Chen filed a lawsuit alleging that Linyi officials had ‗trumped up charges‘ against him in ‗retaliation‘ for his efforts to expose their misdeeds. Chen also wrote a detailed letter to the president of the Supreme People‘s Court and the procurator-general at the Supreme People‘s Procuratorate to protest his imprisonment and petition for release. In 2007 and 2008, prison authorities prevented Chen from communicating with his family, refused a request for medical parole, and accused him of having ‗illicit relations with a foreign country.‘ Chen‘s wife, Yuan Weijing, confirmed that cases of forced abortion and other abuses have resurfaced in Shandong in 2008. She remains under constant police surveillance because of her husband‘s prior advocacy (United States Congressional-Executive Commission on China 2008, Annual Report 2008, CECC website, 31 October, p.98 http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi- bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_house_hearings&docid=f:45233.pdf – Accessed 22 May 2009 – Attachment 3). An April 2008 report by Radio Free Asia provides further information on the reported incident in which a woman was detained and beaten by family planning officials in Shandong. The report also contains further information from Yuan Weijing, the wife of activist Chen Guangcheng regarding the enforcement of family planning in Shandong including the continued practise of forced abortions. The following is an extract of the report: China has pledged to maintain tough family planning policies that limit most of the country‘s families to just one child, in a bid to keep its burgeoning population under control. Pregnant women who fall foul of the system and civil rights activists are still reporting widespread abuses by officials in many parts of the country, including forced abortions, arbitrary detentions and torture. In Zhubao township in the eastern province of Shandong, family planning officials detained and beat the sister of one pregnant woman who had already given birth to one child, the family told RFA‘s Cantonese service. The woman, who lives near Linyi city, where family planning abuses have already been widely documented, is eight months pregnant. She went into hiding with her husband to escape the forced abortion she says appeared inevitable. When the authorities couldn‘t find her, they detained her elder sister. ―After they took her away they were asking her questions about our other sister [the pregnant woman],‖ a younger sister said. ―When she said she didn‘t know, they beat her up. We heard from inside sources that the beatings were very severe. We also heard that they beat one woman to death a few years ago, so we are all very worried about her.‖ She said the entire family was planning to go into hiding to escape further detentions and beatings. …Yuan Weijing, wife of jailed civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng, said her husband‘s blistering exposure of abuses by family planning officials in Linyi city and nearby Yinan county had brought about some changes for a limited time. …―It is just the same as it always was here. If you are pregnant without permission, it doesn‘t matter how many months gone you are—they will keep an eye on the pregnancy and then they will arrest you and drag you off for an abortion,‖ said Yuan, who is herself under constant surveillance at the couple‘s home in Yinan county. ―If you run away, they will detain a member of your family and smash up your home. People here are terribly fearful these days,‖ she told RFA‘s Mandarin service. ―I really couldn‘t tell you the real reason for this. To be honest with you, things got a whole lot more relaxed in 2005 after Chen Guangcheng exposed these practices, and pretty much nobody was getting beaten up at that time. The really nasty practices lingered on in some places, however. But this year it has all started up again.‖ (Mudie, L & Ping, C. 2008, ‗China‘s One-Child Policy stays, abuses resurface‘, Radio Free Asia, 2 April – Attachment 4). An April 2007 article by Radio Free Asia reports that according to Zhang Ming, the head of the Chinese Federation of House Churches, a forced abortion drive had recently taken place in Shandong province. The report provides the following information: Authorities in China‘s southwestern region of Guangxi have forced dozens of pregnant women to a hospital in Baise city to undergo abortions, some as late as nine months, the women and their relatives said. …The head of the Chinese Federation of House Churches Zhang Ming said that a similar forced abortion drive had also recently taken place in the eastern province of Shandong.

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