China orders local authorities to give millions outside the system household registration and rights to social welfare

Children born in breach of the newly abolished one-child policy in China will soon be qualified for household registration, giving them access to long denied social welfare.

A directive issued on Tuesday by the State Council, China’s cabinet, has told provincial governments to come up with concrete measures to register all citizens who are currently excluded from the household registration - or “hukou” – system.

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A person without a hukou in China is denied access to basic welfare such as education and health care, plus are even barred from getting married or opening a bank account.

There are about 13 million unregistered citizens in China, mostly children born in violation of the one child policy to parents who could not afford a steep fine to register them under the hukou system.

Revised laws to allow couples to have more than one child were formally introduced at the beginning of this year.

Unregistered people also include those without a birth certificate, orphans adopted without going through the proper legal procedure, as well as those mistakenly pronounced missing or dead.