Heartless officialdom: Woman punished for adopting 39 disabled children

Kindness is not always rewarded. This was proven by Chinese officials who punished a 65-year-old woman for adopting 39 children with physical and mental disabilities, according to a report in the Arabic daily newspaper ‘Al Bayan.’

Kong Chenyan, a woman from a village in north China's Shanxi Province, has been taking care of physically and mentally disabled children for the past 40 years.

She found the first baby on the roadside, felt sorry for him and decided to take care of him. Since then, she has not stopped caring for children with disabilities.

The ‘Times of Australia’ website said Kong took care of 39 children suffering from various physical and mental problems, but she also said that most of them in fact simply suffered from neglect.

Although taking care of all of them required a lot of money, Kong succeeded in this challenge.

Thanks to the care and attention the children received, many of them survived. The eldest one is 27 years old who finished his college with honours, got a good job and lives in his own home, but still helps his mother and other adopted children.

Six of them joined university, two of them were accepted in art schools for vocational training.

The youngest child is one month old and Kong takes care of him as if he was her own child.

That is why she was surprised when local government punished her for violating adoption laws which allow a maximum of three adopted children per family.

The government punished her by taking over a 8,000 square metre plot of land owned by her and her husband and also cut off all financial aid.

In spite of this huge setback, Kong was not disheartened and started doing several jobs to meet the needs of her adopted children. People who heard her story gave donations in cash, clothes and food.

Kong says that she is concerned about her children and other children abandoned on the streets. She worries what  will happen to her adopted children after she dies and hopes someone will step into her shoes.
 

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