Beijing ? Chinese authorities have punished six government officials after three baby girls whose parents were still alive were sent to an orphanage in southern China that subsequently put them up for adoption overseas, state media and an official said.

Family planning officials in impoverished Guizhou province’s Zhenyuan County sent the babies to a state-run orphanage during 2003 and 2004 without properly investigating their backgrounds, the county government said on its Web site.

All the parents were still alive but had given up their children to avoid harsh fines under the country’s controversial one-child policy. State-run orphanages are only allowed to take in children who have no parents or those whom police have certified as abandoned.