Beijing ? A Chinese province has closed 201 clinics that helped detect and abort female fetuses and is offering stipends to elderly couples without sons in an attempt to counter China’s widening gender imbalance, the government said Wednesday.

Investigators in Hebei province, next to Beijing, uncovered 848 cases over the past two years where medical staff had violated rules banning gender checks that can lead to abortions, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Of 745 hospitals and clinics involved, 374 facilities were fined, and 104 medical workers had their licenses revoked for arranging the illegal practices, Xinhua said.

Abortion is commonly used for birth control in China, although the procedure is supposed to be banned after the fetus is 14 weeks old. Critics of China’s population policies say that rule is sometimes violated by family planning officials who coerce women into abortions to keep from violating government birth targets.