A Chinese couple has been granted refugee status after being persecuted for trying to have a third child (file photo).

A mother who was given a "forced abortion" when she fell pregnant with her third child in China has been granted refugee status in New Zealand.

The mother, alongside her husband, her 19-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son, appealed to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal in December after their initial decision to grant refugee protection was refused.

The couple said they "feared persecution" after being targeted, harassed and threatened for many years due to breaching China's strict family planning laws.

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In its decision, the tribunal said it accepted the couple's accounts of what happened, stating: "There is a real chance [the woman] was given a forced abortion".

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The pair married in China in 2008, having met in December 2000. The wife already had a daughter from her first marriage.

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In April 2010, the woman discovered she was pregnant with another child, a boy. He was her second child but her husband's first.

Under Chinese law, the pair had to pay for a birth permit to have the second child, which was issued. He was born in February 2011 and the family paid further money to register him.

Local government officials regularly visited the couple's home from 2010 to 2016, demanding they write and sign a pledge agreeing to have no more children.

When they refused, officials would threaten and insult them, the couple said.

The husband's employer, a state-owned company, also pressured him not to have any more children, the couple said.

That pressure included removing him from his normal duties and detaining him in a room where he was lectured twice a day. His income was also reduced.

In December 2015, the wife discovered she was pregnant for a third time. The news bought "so much joy" to the family and they shared the news with close relatives, the tribunal's decision said.

Shortly afterward, government officials visited her house and told her she needed to have an abortion.

Shortly afterward, she began bleeding heavily and went to the hospital.

The couple said the doctors and nurses treated her coldly after they learned it was her third pregnancy. No scans or other tests were undertaken to check on the health of the baby, or to see if there was a heartbeat.

The wife was taken into theatre and was told she was having an operation to remove the remainder of the foetus.

Neither she, nor her husband, signed any consent forms and no attempts were made to save the baby.

The couple believe officials directly or indirectly killed their child, the tribunal's decision said.

The whole family later moved to New Zealand.

The tribunal said it was satisfied the woman had a well-founded fear of being persecuted if made to return to China.

It found that she and her husband are refugees, but their children are not.

The couple cannot be deported from New Zealand, it found.