2014-07-30
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Hu Hanmin (L) and Zhou Xiaoping speak to reporters at the Laogai Foundation office in Washington, July 28, 2014.
RFA
A couple who fled mainland China with their three children after years of persecution under the country’s draconian family planning policies has been granted refugee status in the United States after more than a decade on the run.
Hu Hanmin and Zhou Xiaoping were repeatedly targeted by family planning officials in their home province of Hunan after giving birth to a second and a third child in breach of population targets.
Zhou said the family spent a decade on the run from officials, hiding out in Tibet, before splitting up to throw off their pursuers.
Eventually, they were caught and detained, Zhou told RFA in Washington this week.
“We had just got back from buying groceries when a minibus pulled up in front of us and a few people got out and asked me if I was Zhou Xiaoping, and told me to produce my child’s birth certificate,” she said.
“I couldn’t, and somehow, I’m not sure how, they got us onto the minibus,” Zhou said. “When I woke up, they had already sterilized me.”
Zhou said the family were forced to pay a fine of more than 15,000 yuan (U.S.$2,430), more than twice the local average annual income in rural Hunan.
When the family was unable to pay, family planning bureau officials detained her husband, performing a forced vasectomy on him, she said.
Still haunted
Hu escaped to Thailand after his release, to be followed shortly after by Zhou and the three children.
In a quiet voice which still sounds haunted in spite of the family’s recent good news, Hu said he hadn’t been home for many years, and had been forced to make a living as an itinerant laborer to stay one step ahead of the authorities.
“Laboring in China is extremely tough; it’s like being a slave,” he said. “Some bosses or gang leaders don’t even pay you, so it’s a really hard life.”
