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Beijing, Feb. 5 (Reuters): A Chinese toddler died after being run over by a van belonging to family planning officials engaged in a confrontation with his parents, the Xinhua news agency said today.
China limits most urban couples to one child and rural parents to two in a deeply unpopular policy enacted more than 30 years ago to rein in population growth in the world’s most populous country.
Eleven family planning officials in the town of Mayu, in rural Zhejiang province in the Yangtze river delta, were threatening to detain the 13-month-old boy’s mother if she did not pay a 30,000 yuan ($4,800) fine for bearing an unauthorised third child.
The boy dropped from his father’s arms as he tussled with the officials and was run over by the officials’ van yesterday. He died in hospital today, Xinhua said.
Although forced abortions, sterilisations and the destruction of offenders’ homes were common in the 1980s, China has grown to rely more on fines for enforcing the one-child policy.
Popular outrage over abuses by family planning officials was re-ignited last year after a man posted a photo on the Internet of his young wife lying exhausted on a hospital bed next to the bloody seven-month-old foetus she was forced to abort.
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