Chinese single moms fight for rights

Shanghai – Li Meng is a devoted mother trying to support her twoyear-old daughter but in the eyes of Chinese society and the state, she is almost a second-class citizen.

Millions of single mothers like her have it rough in a country where out-of-wedlock births are frowned upon and where only married women can claim maternity benefits.

Li, a Shanghai resident, got pregnant with her boyfriend, but he left her to raise the child by herself.

Ineligible for maternity leave because she was not married, she had to quit her job in real estate to take care of her baby.

“There was a lot of resistance [to having the baby]. My mother said I was crazy,” said Li, who used a pseudonym to avoid being further stigmatised.

“She thought it was unacceptable for a traditional family in China.”

The Chinese government in 2016 scrapped its long-time “onechild policy” and began encouraging citizens to have more children as the birth rate drops in the world’s most populous country.

But benefits such as several months of paid maternity leave and medical coverage are still reserved only for married women.

When Li tried to secure her maternity rights, she was stymied by her lack of a marriage certificate, forcing her into an exhausting quest that bounced her between multiple government agencies.

“It’s like they’re kicking a football between each other,” she said.

Frustrated, she filed a pending court case.

A 2019 report by a government-affiliated research institute estimated China had more than 19 million single mothers, including divorcees and widows.

They’re stuck in a Catch-22, said lawyer Dong Xiaoying, who has formed a legal support network for single mothers.

China’s National Health Commission went as far as saying in 2017, that out-of-wedlock births were “against the public order and against good morals”.

The experience of Wang Ruixi, an online advocate for single mothers who has a young daughter of her own, shows how they face more than just bureaucratic indifference.

After the 30 year old last year expressed her pride online at raising her child alone, she faced a torrent of abuse on social media.

She eventually left China and now lives in Europe. Still, there are some flickers of hope.

Since 2016, children of single parents have finally been allowed to obtain the local household registration status crucial for gaining access to government services like schooling and healthcare.

The government has sought to promote marriage and child-bearing after China in 2020 saw its lowest number of marriage registrations in 17 years, partly due to improving educational and career options for women. –