Illegitimate children penalized for hukou lack

The hukou restrictions that have cast illegitimate children out of the social welfare system, leaving them unable to take trains, planes or even go to school, is due for reform, experts and parents say.

Yu Jun, a 48-year-old mother in Beijing, has lost count of the rejections she got when she asked the bureaus in her sub-district, district and municipal government to help her daughter get the hukou, or registered permanent residence, over the past four years, a news show on China Central Television reported on Thursday.

"They cannot help me because her father should be present when applying," she said, adding that the father abandoned them in her pregnancy.

She still cannot find a primary school that will accept her daughter without the hukou.

Similar cases have happened to other school-age children, including a born-out-of-wedlock girl in Shanghai.

The 8-year-old girl cannot go to school because her birth certificate was falsified, according to the public security bureau.

Lack of hukou has kept from such children the educational and healthcare services that others enjoy.

Many experts have suggested that the government revise the current laws to lift the restrictions.

Zhan Zhongle, a law professor at Peking University, said a large population and insufficient reforms are reasons that have caused the household registration system to still have so many unreasonable restrictions.

The government needs more reform in relevant areas to guarantee these illegitimate children have the same rights as other children, Zhan said.