HONG KONG (Web Desk) – A pregnant Chinese woman wanted her unborn child to be born in Hong Kong so desperately, she hid in the airport for a week.
The 26 year old Xie Miaoling intentionally missed her connecting flight to Guangzhou, and illegally camped out in the airport until she finally went into labour, only alerting airport staff when she began experiencing labour pains and needed medical assistance.
Children born in Hong Kong to mainland Chinese are given the right of abode and are also able to benefit from Hong Kong’s education system.
Miaoling was sentenced to six months in jail on Wednesday for hiding in a restricted area of Hong Kong International Airport from July 14 – 21, RT reported.
In 2003, the Individual Visit Scheme was launched. The scheme allowed travellers to visit the city on an individual basis, as opposed to previous years when only travellers with business visas or group tours could enter.
In 2012 CY Leung, incumbent Chief Executive of Hong Kong, changed policy by disallowing pregnant women from booking obstetric services at public hospitals and banning mainland Chinese mothers from giving birth in private hospitals – unless their husbands are Hong Kong residents.
Since then, the number of anchor baby births have dropped dramatically, 254 non-eligible mothers gave birth in Hong Kong’s in 2015. Of these, 98 were women from mainland China, according to Hospital Authority statistics.
