Chinese accused of forcing adoptions

Local family-planning officials enforcing China’s one-child rule in Hunan province stand accused of taking babies for profit in deals that ended in international adoptions, some of which closed in the United States.

The story first broke in China’s Caixin, an investigative magazine, early this week. The publication said family-planning officials in Longhui county, Hunan, had forcibly taken at least 20 babies in the past 10 years from families that violated China’s controversial one-child rule. The children were then adopted by families in the United States, the Netherlands and Poland, several Chinese media outlets then reported.

The Chinese government says it has launched an investigation into the matter, but this is not the first time local family planning committees have been accused of similar behavior and heavy-handed tactics. In enforcing the nearly three-decades old rule, local committees have turned to extreme measures like forced abortions and sterilizations to meet their targets. In this instance, the officials were reportedly paid 1,000 yuan ($155) for each child delivered to welfare agencies, which collected three times that fee from adoption agencies.