China Cracks Two Child Trafficking Rings

China

China cracks two child trafficking rings

Reuters

BEIJING, Nov 24 (Reuters) - A Chinese court sentenced one person to death and jailed nine people for running a child-trafficking ring in the prosperous southern province of Guangdong, Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday.

China cracks two child trafficking rings

24 Nov 2005 12:49:08 GMT

Source: Reuters

The gang had kidnapped 38 children, mostly from crowded markets, and sold them between 2001 and 2004, Xinhua said.

While many of the children had been tracked down, the whereabouts of 12 were still unknown, it said.

Police in neighbouring Hunan province arrested 27 people, including the head of an orphanage, in another child-trafficking crackdown, the official People's Daily said on its Web site, also on Thursday.

For years, the Hengyang county orphanage in Hunan had been buying babies from traffickers for 800 yuan to 1,200 yuan ($100-$150), then registering them to receive government support and selling them to families desperate to have children for up to 30,000 yuan, the report said.

"The budget for state support of orphanages is set every year according to the number of children being raised in each facility. The more children, the more money," an unnamed legal expert was quoted as saying.

"Some families that cannot have children of their own are desperate for kids, so these factors combine into a way for orphanages to make big money."

The sale of children, and women, is a nationwide problem in China, where stringent rules on family planning allow couples to have just one child, at least in cities.

The restrictions have bolstered a traditional bias for male offspring, seen as the mainstay for elderly parents, and have resulted in abortions, killings or abandonment of baby girls.

The Hunan orphanage sold children across southern China, including to areas from which many foreign families adopt Chinese babies.

In October, advertisements offering babies for sale appeared on a popular Chinese auction Web site owned by eBay. The ads were later proved to be a hoax and the man who posted them was jailed for seven days.