In China, a woman has been charged with human trafficking and conspiring to sell her baby boy for nearly $7,000. The police were notified about the situation after the woman’s mother-in-law contacted the police.
Apparently the woman, who is known as Huang, told her family that her baby died shortly after birth. However, in reality she was working with an obstetrician to sell the child.
The bid to sell her little boy is somewhat surprising given that newborn females are typically the victims in baby selling in China because of the one-child policy and a cultural preference for boys.
The woman had a son from a previous marriage and often “quarrelled” with her current husband, Xinhua said. She “was worried that the new baby would affect the life of her first child”, it said.
A couple paid 42,000 yuan (US$6,740) for the child, 7,000 yuan of which went to the obstetrician who helped find the buyers, according to Xinhua. The woman has been charged with human trafficking, other Chinese media outlets reported, while the doctor has also been prosecuted.
China has long struggled to rein in a lucrative market in babies, fuelled by a preference for male children and the “one child policy,” which limits the number of children couples can have.
This month reports said police arrested more than 100 suspects in a crackdown on trafficking newborn babies and children in which 37 babies were rescued. In March 2013, Chinese police rescued 92 children and two women and detained 301 people suspected of being involving with trafficking.
Unfortunately, China’s had countless incidences of human trafficking in the past year.
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For example, as LifeNews previously reported, China Central Television reported that authorities rescued 37 babies and a toddler out of a trafficking ring in an abandoned factory in Shandong. The children were found in poor condition and many were suffering from HIV-AIDS and malnutrition. Police first became suspicious of the trafficking ring when they noticed that pregnant women were being herded into the factory. The babies were sold at a local morgue for anywhere from $8,000-$13,000, and a suspect named Wu told the police “boys are more expensive than girls.”
Additionally, the South China Morning Post reported that the traffickers would feed the children instant noodles or some leftover vegetables while waiting for buyers. A Chinese police official, Chen Shiqu, said that the incident is a “new criminal pattern” in which child traffickers take pregnant women to a specific place to give birth. Now police have 103 people in custody who are suspected of selling or buying children.
