Some Chinese newspapers have disclosed a disturbing practice by local governments in China to enforce the one-child policy: They actually kidnapped infants who were born outside of the allowed quota, and put them up for adoption. Many of those infants have been adopted by overseas families...
A recent report from Hunan province, Tiaoyang city, in the newspaper "Financial and Economy News", told these shocking stories:
In the name of collecting society child support, more than a dozen "illegal" infants were forcefully removed from their families by government family planning department, sent to Tiaoyang orphanages, and were all changed family names to "Tiao". Some were eventually tracked down, but many were adopted overseas. This was an unending tragedy.
The county of Longhui, one of the poorest counties in Hunan, has always been a model county for family planning in Hunan province, because they always meet the quota for controlling new births. This is accomplished by harsh punishment for anyone who have children outside of the government quota. Before 1997, the punishment was to demolish the house of the family. After 2000, they implemented a new policy of a 6000 yuan fine. But Longhui county is one of the poorest counties in Hunan, and many people are unable to pay the fine. The government then forcefully take away infants from the families who are unable to pay the fine, and put them up for adoption.
Even more tragic, was that the enforcers of the policy did not take care to check the information they had, and some of the infants taken away were in fact born within the quota, and were the only child of the family.
Ling Yang was such a child. She was born July 24, 2004 as the only child to father Libing Yang and mother Zhimei Cao. When she was 6 months old, her parents left the village for Shenzhen to look for jobs, and she was left with the gandparents. On April 29, 2005, a dozen government workers came to grandparents' house and forcefully took away little Ling Yang. They had mistakenly determined that Ling Yang was born outside of the quota, based on the fact that she was living with grandparents. The grandfather was told that he had to pay 6000 yuan fine in order to get the child back. He didn't have the money. He managed to borrow from neighbors and friends about 4000 yuan. The next day he went to the local government office and he was told that it was too late. The child was sent away to an orphanage in Tiaoyang city. When the father received the call that his daughter was taken away, he immediately came back. But there was nothing he could do, because even the government didn't know where the child was sent.
Libing Yang and wife then started a years long search for their daughter. In 2009, they met someone in a hotel in Changde, who brought to them two pictures of a girl, that they recognized immediately as their daughter. She was already adopted by someone in the US. The girl is now 7 years old, and they still are unable to even contact her.
There are many stories like this. In one case, the government took away one of twins. In another case, the infant was taken away because the parents did not obtain their marriage license from the government, even though they had held the traditional wedding. One child was removed from her mother while they were walking on the street.
From the cases that the reporters could confirm, 16 infants were taken from their families from 2000 to 2005 in Longhui county. Many of them were adopted by American families. Unwittingly, we have become accomplices in the crimes committed by these people.