In an unusual attempt to avoid jail, a woman kept getting pregnant and had three children with one man in four years in central China's Shanxi province. However, the woman, sentenced to five years' imprisonment for fraud in December 2020, could not keep her real intention of getting pregnant under wraps any longer and has been sent back to a detention centre, Shanxi Evening News reported. With just a year left in her prison term, instead of jail, she was sent to a detention centre, and she had managed to avoid being properly incarcerated. As per the rules in China, convicts who suffer from serious illnesses, pregnant women, and those taking care of their newborn babies, and those unable to live by themselves are permitted to serve a sentence outside prison temporarily. The convicts need to submit illness or pregnancy examination reports once every three months. Apart from that, the convicts are required to serve a community correction service at hospitals or local prisons and public security institutions. Authorities regularly monitor the services offered by the convicts. It was only after three years that the authorities discovered that Chen, who had delivered her third baby, did not actually live with her child. Furthermore, they found out that the child's household registration was under Chen's sister-in-law's name, which implied that the child was legally the latter's child, a South China Morning Post report said. As the authorities presented evidence, Chen finally admitted that she had already divorced and her first two children lived with her ex-husband, while her third baby was given to her ex-husband's sister. The public prosecutor believed that Chen used pregnancy as an excuse to avoid jail and suggested that she be imprisoned. The local court and public prosecutor had reportedly sent staff to explain the law to Chen to ensure she was willing to serve her term legally. (With inputs from SCMP)
