Chinese woman sentenced to death for ringleading child trafficking gang

Chinese woman gets death for child trafficking

2010-04-17

WUHAN - A court in central China's Hubei Province Friday sentenced a woman to death and another two to life in prison for trafficking more than 40 children.

The 23-member child trafficking ring were convicted of buying 49 children from Shizong County in southwestern Yunnan Province and selling them to people in Shexian County in northern Hebei Province, the Wuhan Railway Transport Intermediate Court said in a statement.

The ring, busted in May and June last year, sold the boys for up to 40,000 yuan ($5,860) and girls for up to 20,000 yuan each between March 2005 and July 2009.

The court handed down the death sentence to Yu Lixiang, the ringleader, for trafficking 33 children and causing one to death. Du Minghua and Yu's sister Yu Xiaofen were sentenced to life in prison in the first-instance trial.

The rest 20 accomplices were sentenced to two to 15 years in prison.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-04/17/content_9742052.htm

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/woman-sentenced-to-death-for-trafficking-49-children_100349219.html

http://theydontbelongtoyou.blogspot.com/2010/04/chinese-woman-gets-death-for-child.html

No family reunions for rescued children

April 02 2010

Forty-six children, mostly girls between ages 1 to 5, are stranded in limbo, 10 months after they were rescued from human traffickers or from adoptive families who bought the children because the blood parents who sold their babies have not showed up to bring them home.

"We have stored the children's DNA information and also sent police to Yunan to search for the sellers and parents, but there's no good news," Yang Jingping, a deputy director from the public security bureau of Shexian county, Hebei Province, told the Global Times Thursday.

"The government can't raise them all. We have to send them back to the adoptive families which bought them," Yang said.

Last June, Wuhan railway police detained several suspects for human trafficking, which led to arrests of a ring of 23 members from Yunan and Hebei provinces.

The police found that the ring had traded a total of 49 children from Yunnan to Hebei over the past four years, including three children who died on the way.

The railway police station in Shexian county became a nursery for the children. Several female officers had become "temporary mothers."

However, Wang Peiqiang, head of the station in Shexian, has regrets over the rescue operation, Beijing Times reported Thursday.

"The case doesn't have a happy ending," Wang told the newspaper, adding that none of the children were truly rescued because no parents came to claim them.

The police believe that the baby-selling trade, not kidnapping, was behind the dilemma.

"People out there where the children came from are very poor. Some made money by selling their infants. Parents will allow anyone to take away their child as long as they pay," said Yu Lixiang, the ringleader of the gang, according to an interrogation video offered by the police.

Yu said she visited some mothers.

"They are too poor to afford edible oil and salt. Rice is out of their reach," she said. "Their houses are shabby. Their children had no shoes to wear."

Ding Shan, a procurator in Wuhan, where the trafficking ring stood trial, agreed.

"Some families in great poverty have regarded bearing and selling babies as a way to make money," Ding said.

Ding said some suspects from Yunan quoted a local saying, "bearing babies earns much more than raising pigs."

The police had no alternative but to send them back, Ding said.

"If we send the children to orphanages, their growth will be affected. And it may hurt them once again," Ding said.

Gao Feng, a professor from Beijing People's Police College, lashed out at families who sell their own children.

"It's criminal. Babies are not property that you can sell randomly as money makers," Gao told the Global Times.

However, Ding said the authorities had no plan to prosecute the parents for criminal liability if they come to fetch their children, and would not charge adoptive families with a crime unless they stood in the way of the rescue operation.

To eliminate children trafficking, Gao advised that equal penalties should apply to buyers as well as traffickers.

Feng Yujun, a law professor from the Renmin University of China, said returning the children to adoptive homes is not a good idea. He believes that the civil affairs bureau should take the responsibility.

"Some social assistance can be helpful," Feng told the Global Times, adding that full-fledged public welfare, charity and social insurance is still absent in China.

The trial of the child trafficking gang opened March 4 in a court in Wuhan, and the verdicts will be announced next week, according to Ding Shan.

http://china.globaltimes.cn/editor-picks/2010-04/518540_2.html