One-child policy lifted for quake victims in China

Chinese Officials announced yesterday that parents whose only child was killed or grievously injured in the May 12 earthquake would be exempt from the country’s one-child policy.

The exception, issued by the Chengdu Population and Family Planning Committee in Sichuan Province, said qualified parents could apply for legal permission to have another child.

An estimated 10,000 students are believed to have died in the quake, which resulted in making a lot of couples childless.

The one-child policy was introduced in 1979 to control population growth. The committee announced that if a couple’s legally born child was killed in the earthquake, an illegal child under 18 years could be registered as a legal replacement.