At issue are three baby girls who ended up in the state-run orphanage, even though their parents were still alive. The officials are accused of coercing the parents into giving up their daughters in order to avoid the hefty fine that comes with having extra children under China’s controversial one child policy.
State-run orphanages are only supposed to take children who are confirmed as abandoned or whose parents are dead.
In one of the cases, the father tried repeatedly to get his daughter back from the orphanage, but failed.
Couples in the United States and Europe sometimes go to China to adopt girls from orphanages. According to the Associated Press, they pay the orphanages an adoption fee of roughly $3,000 per child.