Residents in Guangdong Province consult with officials on how to register their children in August 2014. Photo:IC

Li Xue, 22, a resident of Dongcheng district in Beijing, cannot prove to others who she is, because she has never been issued an identity card.

Li is the second child in her family, and never received her hukou (household registration) because her parents could not afford a 5,000 yuan ($784) fine for having a second child 22 years ago.

Like Li, there are at least 13 million people who don't officially exist in China. They cannot attend public schools or universities, buy train tickets, receive insurance, find jobs or get married. They are said to be "living in the shadows."

Some 7.8 million of them are in this position because they were additional children forbidden under the one-child family planning policy.

Two decades of struggle

Li was an unexpected child. Her mother had injured her legs, and the doctor said that an abortion could be dangerous. Li's parents are both handicapped, and thought they were eligible to have a second child. But according to family planning policy rules that took effect in 1991, they were not.

"The policy also said that anyone who has a special situation and needs to have a second child could apply for approval from the municipal family planning commission," said Li.

Li and her parents appealed to different departments.

The local police station refused Li's father when he tried to get Li registered in the household system.

Four months later, an official from the sub-district family planning commission came to the house and asked the parents to pay a 5,000 yuan fine, known as the social maintenance fee.

At that time, if parents wanted to get their newly born second child registered, they needed to present a certificate proving they had paid their social maintenance fees.

Li's mother was fired four days after Li was born. With a monthly income less than 150 yuan, the family had no hope to raise the 5,000 yuan.

Officials breaking law

According to the household registration regulation established in 1958, all babies should be registered without additional conditions. In 1988, the Ministry of Public Security and National Health and Family Planning Commission jointly released a regulation to ban local governments from linking the issuance of a certificate showing payment of a social maintenance fee or other records of family planning policy with household registration.

"But local governments still ask parents to hand in their certificate of abiding the family planning policy or social maintenance fee in order to get their child registered," according to an anonymous official at a family planning commission from Shandong, adding that this is an unavoidable behavior to implement family planning policy.

Linking the registration of newly born babies to paying the social maintenance fees is the root reason for having 7.8 million unregistered households, according to a report made by Wan Haiyuan, a research fellow from the Academy of Macroeconomic Research of the National Development and Reform Commission.

During the past 22 years, Li's life has been constricted by not being registered.

Not owning an official identity certificate not only brought difficulties in Li's life, it also affected her mental health.

 "I have no rights and sometimes I even doubt whether I really exist," Li said.

People who are not registered have little sense of identity and presence and have poor mental health, with more than 34.5 percent of them always feeling depressed, according to the report.

In order to get Li registered, Li's family has petitioned for almost two decades, and they received nothing but a stack of useless papers.

"Linking conditions with the current registration system is the root reason of the unregistered households. Only when separating the system from the penalty of birth control measures could the number of them stop growing," said Wang.

China is improving its policies on family planning policy.

Yang Wenzhuang, a deputy-director at the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said in a press release 0n July 10, 2014 that linking family planning policies to the registration system goes against the law and should be abolished.

On October 29, China announced that it will allow all couples to have a second child, which ends the one-child policy.

The new policy gives hope to Li and another 13 million people, who are still fighting to get an identity.