Two Child Trafficking Rings Busted in China UPDATED

“Chinese police on Monday broke up two major child-trafficking gangs, arrested 802 suspects and freed 181 children, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said Thursday.

Under the command of the MPS, more than 10,000 police officers took actions simultaneously, catching all the suspects and rescuing all the children in 15 provincial regions including Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Sichuan, Yunnan, according to an MPS statement.

Shao Zhongyuan, an A-level-wanted suspect involved in a child-trafficking gang that trafficked more than 100 children, has also been arrested in Pingyi county, Shandong province, the statement said.

An unidentified police officer from the MPS said police have stopped child trafficking from increasing, but the illegal practice was still prominent in some areas.

Therefore, the police around the country will further implement the zero tolerance policy to child trafficking, the officer said. ”
Two child-trafficking gangs eliminated in China

[People’s Daily Online 7/6/12]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update: “Chinese police broke up child-trafficking rings in 15 provinces and arrested more than 800 people after babies were auctioned off to the highest bidder for up to 50,000 yuan ($7,800).

Footage aired on Chinese television today showed a police officer involved in the raids wresting a child away from a woman who had allegedly bought it. Suspects and other rescued children were also shown being taken away by police.”

“A doctor at a clinic in Hebei province organized a trade in which pregnant women sold their children for up to 50,000 yuan depending on the baby’s gender and health, and its parents’appearance, the Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.

A suspect who had allegedly helped in the trafficking of more than 100 children was also arrested, the ministry said in the statement. It said police first became aware of one child-trafficking ring in Henan province when four suspects were found on a bus traveling with babies they intended to sell.”

China Busts Traffickers After Babies Auctioned Off for $7,800

[Bloomberg News 7/5/12]

Update 2: A Chinese Blogger recalls similar incidents in the same province in 2002.

“Among the 168 suspects from the southwest province of Sichuan, 16 of them are so-called “producers and traffickers of infants,” that is mother-traffickers who have sold their own babies.

This piece of news has started me thinking about of a report that I myself participated in 10 years ago.

On July 4 2002, the Public Security Department of Shouguang City, in the coastal Shandong province, uncovered a big baby-trafficking case. Eleven traffickers were captured and 11 newborn babies were rescued. The summer that year was so hot that these babies, aged between 2 and 4 months, were found in a critical condition. Some of them had dermatitis and the others suffered from omphalitis.[infection of umbilical cord stump.]

After some care, the newborns were out of danger. The Shouguang authority tried their best and found out that most of the babies came from Liangshan County in Sichuan. They contacted Liangshan’s local government to arrange to send these babies back to their parents. Although the local authority seemed to be caught in a dilemma, they nonetheless came up with a way of getting these babies home.

As a reporter, I witnessed the whole process of sending these infants back.

After three days of a bumpy journey on the train and a dozen more hours on a bus, the 11 babies finally reached their hometown. During the trip, so as to be able to identify them, the health care staff had numbered these babies on their foreheads. During the intolerably long journey where the temperature hit its highest level in 48 years, the babies behaved so gently and hardly cried. Maybe they felt they were approaching home, little by little.

However, when the bus arrived in the county township of Liangshan, no mother rushed forward to fetch their returned infant. No one covered their little darling with hysterical kisses as we had expected. The streets appeared extremely calm. The filming and interviews that the cameraman and I had planned came to nothing.

The infants were settled in two empty rooms at the local martyrs’ cemetery for their mothers to come and claim them. We waited outside the rooms with our cameras set up ready hoping to catch images of reunions of mothers and babies. Yet nothing happened.

After nearly a day of waiting, the local department of civil affairs posted a notice informing the families who had lost their babies to come and collect them. Still, nothing.

Someone’s making a killing

Finally, a local told me that I was never going to see any mother come. “These mothers don’t want their babies anymore. These are the goods they have sold. Have you ever seen a shopkeeper who has sold his goods feel happy to see the goods returned?” he asked me.

His words shocked us.

So after some investigation, we found out that these babies were indeed born of parents who intended to sell them for money right from the beginning. It was said to be very common locally. The problem was that so many newborns were sold at the same period this time that it aroused the attention of the outside world.

According to the local people, a newborn was sold by their parents for between 1000 to 2000 RMB ($150 to $300). They were usually taken to faraway places and resold for more than five times the price.

The statement was confirmed by a human trafficker interrogated by the police. “It’s not a risky business. If a baby dies on the way, I just throw the dead corpse out of the window,” he said. “Even if I get to sell only one out of two, I still make money.”

Being so intrigued by these mothers who sold their own flesh and blood, we tried to interview some of them. With the assistance of local inhabitants and a lot of effort, we found a mother who once sold her baby. We first took a four-hour car ride, then we changed to a tractor for two hours on a bumpy road, and then another three hours on a three-wheeled motor-moped. When we finally got to the remote mountainous village, I felt as if my bottom did not belong to me anymore.

There was no electricity in the village. The several rough stone cottages seemed interlocked together. Inside out, this was clearly a very poor village. It was very quiet everywhere, no one seemed to want to talk. Only the pigs and chickens scattered freely around the corners of the houses made some occasional sounds.

It took us quite a while to find the woman whom we wanted to interview. She was in front of the door of her house chopping some herbs to feed her pig. Her hands were dyed green by the juice of the herb. The guide told us she was the woman who had sold her baby two years earlier.

We began to ask the woman questions very cautiously. But she was so calm, and nothing like what we had anticipated. “Look around and tell me, what is there in this house that would be worth 1000 Yuan, apart from a baby?” she asked us.

We looked in the direction her finger was pointing. In the dark house lay a crumbling bed. A deformed pot was hanging beside a stove. Underneath were a few jagged bowls. Further in the corner, stood a pig that was staring warily at us.

She shook her head and then said, “We just couldn’t think of any other way of making 1000 Yuan in just one go. That’s the equivalent of two harvests.”

“Don’t you care about the life and death of your child?” we asked.

“If one is doomed to be dirt-poor in life, one can never change that fate. That’s one’s fortune. That’s destiny.” She then raised her head and looked faraway. “Maybe, maybe he’ll be able to find a good home,” she said, seeming to be talking to herself as much as to us.

At this moment some unusual radiance flashed across her eyes, and we couldn’t tell whether it was joy or sadness.

On our way back to the county township, one reporter from Shandong remarked: “They are so poor that the only thing that they have got left is their fertility.”

Ten years have passed, and I don’t know whether the situation in those poor rural areas has improved. With my whole heart, I, of course, applaud the combat against infant-trafficking crimes. But at the same time, the same importance should be given to fighting the poverty which nurtures such evil. That would be a real solution.”

The Mothers Who Sold Their Newborns: A Tale Of Child Trafficking In China

[World Crunch Caixin 7/12/12 by Zeng Ying]