According to a recent study conducted by the Guangdong Family Planning Science and Technology Research Institute, 50 to 80 percent female workers who left their rural hometown to work in cities in Guangdong Province have had premarital sex. Of them, 50 to 60 percent experienced unwanted pregnancies.

After giving birth to Feifei, Qiao lost her job. With no income, her savings were soon used up. And she had to send her baby to a foster home in Tongzhou District, a suburb of Beijing, at 1,500 yuan ($245) a month. She then found a job with free food and free accommodation and her monthly salary was enough to pay the foster home. The days she received her salary were the only days she could see her baby. This lasted for a whole year until she was finally able to bring her baby home.

But the financial difficulty is nothing compared to societal and institutional discrimination. The first big problem facing an illegitimate child is household registration, a form of establishing residency in a particular jurisdiction. Feifei's father's household registration was in Beijing, and Feifei was born in Beijing, so Qiao hoped her son could be registered as a Beijing resident.

However, she was informed this was impossible for children born out of wedlock. In order to get a household registration in Beijing, she would have to provide a birth certificate and information about the genetic father. For "illegitimate" children, a paternity test was also needed. She went back to her hometown in Guizhou, but the local police authorities also refused to grant the child household registration, which is absolutely crucial for obtaining social welfare benefits.

Despite this, Qiao said that when she sees her son, she has no regrets. She also believes the problems she has with the child's household registration will be solved in time.

Denying children of unwed mothers the same rights as other children is one way the government discriminates against unwed motherhood, said She Zongming, a media critic.

According to the Population and Family Planning Law, having children outside of marriage is illegal. Parents must pay a social compensation fee and meet other conditions to complete a child's household registration.

In addition to the obstacles in the social systems, widespread discrimination adds insult to injury.

"Illegitimate births are faced with moral condemnation, especially those births resulting from extramarital sex. This is detrimental to childhood development," said She, adding that women are both disproportionally blamed and burdened by the social problem. He warned that such an atmosphere would encourage child abandonment.

Seeking help

"In China, due to deep-rooted discrimination and family planning policies, unwed mothers have always escaped the attention of the mainstream," said Yang Juhua, a professor of Renmin University of China's Center for Population and Development Studies. "Policy making and academic circles pay little attention to illegitimate births. Now is the time to adequately examine unwed motherhood."

Frustrated by harsh realities, many unwed mothers turned to cyberspace and established a number of online communities on instant messaging platforms and forums.

"Illegitimate births were regarded as a moral problem. Both the government and the public seemed reticent on touching this group," said Wei Wei, founder of Little Bird, a non-government organization in Beijing.

Little Bird helps unwed mothers contact birth fathers and claim support. Wei said the group rarely succeeds in doing so.

"Such cases need help from the government," said Wei. "A non-government organization cannot do everything, not to mention a single woman with a little child."

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