802 arrested as police smash child traffickers
By Li Qian |
July 7, 2012, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
Doctors in north China's Hebei Province were among 802 suspects arrested nationwide for abducting and trading hundreds of children, the Ministry of Public Security said yesterday.
It was the first child-trafficking case involving medical professionals, the ministry said in a statement.
More than 10,000 police officers took part in coordinated raids shortly before midnight on Monday, breaking up two major cross-provincial networks and rescuing 181 children in 15 provinces, including Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Sichuan and Yunnan.
Shao Zhongyuan, the ringleader of a family-style gang which trafficked more than 100 children, was arrested in the crackdown in Shandong's Pingyi County, the statement said.
The freed children have been sent to child welfare centers in Shandong and Hebei provinces for DNA identification to find their real parents, and the centers will take care of those who are not claimed.
One trafficking gang, headed by Yang Xuehua and Ji Xiaofang, was said to have cooperated with four private clinics in Xingtai, a city in Hebei Province. The duo hail from Yunnan in southwest China.
The clinics were popular with women who had children in contravention of China's one-child policy. Doctors neither issued birth certificates nor cared about the women's identities, the ministry said, making it relatively safe for traffickers to trade in the infants.
Yang and Ji would ask relatives in Yunnan's Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, a poverty-stricken region, to find pregnant women too poor to care for their babies or who did not want a baby girl, and transport them to Hebei, The Beijing News reported.
Guo Yanfang, a gynecology clinic owner in Xingtai's Pingxiang County, is alleged to have carried out fetus gender testing and helped the gang find buyers.
She is also said to have persuaded several local residents and doctors to take part in the enterprise. Shi Shuping, a gynecologist from the county hospital, was one of Guo's helpers, the paper said.
Local police said a baby girl can fetch 30,000 yuan (US$4,713) to 50,000 yuan while a baby boy sells for 70,000 to 80,000 yuan. A middleman can earn 2,000 to 5,000 yuan from each deal and a pregnant woman can get 30,000 to 50,000 yuan from selling her baby - a huge sum for her poor family, police said. Officers became suspicious of the clinics late last year, given the unusual number of pregnant women from other provinces.
The infants were sold in Beijing and the provinces of Sichuan, Hebei, Shaanxi, Henan and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Xingtai police arrested more than 30 suspects and freed six children, but Ji is still at large, the paper said.
Another gang was found to have abducted children from Wenshan area of Yunnan, selling them in the provinces of Hebei, Sichuan, Fujian and Henan, the ministry said.
Two alleged ringleaders, Li Shichun and Hou Enzhuo, have been apprehended.
Yunnan police rescued 31 infants and arrested 76 suspects in a bust of a multi-provincial human trafficking gang last month. Several family-style rings in rural areas in Wenshan were also busted.
China sees many cases of young women being kidnapped in poor southwestern regions and sold to rural families in faraway provinces over the past decade. The women are married off to desperate bachelors, while babies, preferably boys, are mostly sold to sterile couples not qualified to adopt.
Police rescued 8,660 abducted children and 15,458 women last year.
It was the first child-trafficking case involving medical professionals, the ministry said in a statement.
More than 10,000 police officers took part in coordinated raids shortly before midnight on Monday, breaking up two major cross-provincial networks and rescuing 181 children in 15 provinces, including Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Sichuan and Yunnan.
Shao Zhongyuan, the ringleader of a family-style gang which trafficked more than 100 children, was arrested in the crackdown in Shandong's Pingyi County, the statement said.
The freed children have been sent to child welfare centers in Shandong and Hebei provinces for DNA identification to find their real parents, and the centers will take care of those who are not claimed.
One trafficking gang, headed by Yang Xuehua and Ji Xiaofang, was said to have cooperated with four private clinics in Xingtai, a city in Hebei Province. The duo hail from Yunnan in southwest China.
The clinics were popular with women who had children in contravention of China's one-child policy. Doctors neither issued birth certificates nor cared about the women's identities, the ministry said, making it relatively safe for traffickers to trade in the infants.
Yang and Ji would ask relatives in Yunnan's Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, a poverty-stricken region, to find pregnant women too poor to care for their babies or who did not want a baby girl, and transport them to Hebei, The Beijing News reported.
Guo Yanfang, a gynecology clinic owner in Xingtai's Pingxiang County, is alleged to have carried out fetus gender testing and helped the gang find buyers.
She is also said to have persuaded several local residents and doctors to take part in the enterprise. Shi Shuping, a gynecologist from the county hospital, was one of Guo's helpers, the paper said.
Local police said a baby girl can fetch 30,000 yuan (US$4,713) to 50,000 yuan while a baby boy sells for 70,000 to 80,000 yuan. A middleman can earn 2,000 to 5,000 yuan from each deal and a pregnant woman can get 30,000 to 50,000 yuan from selling her baby - a huge sum for her poor family, police said. Officers became suspicious of the clinics late last year, given the unusual number of pregnant women from other provinces.
The infants were sold in Beijing and the provinces of Sichuan, Hebei, Shaanxi, Henan and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Xingtai police arrested more than 30 suspects and freed six children, but Ji is still at large, the paper said.
Another gang was found to have abducted children from Wenshan area of Yunnan, selling them in the provinces of Hebei, Sichuan, Fujian and Henan, the ministry said.
Two alleged ringleaders, Li Shichun and Hou Enzhuo, have been apprehended.
Yunnan police rescued 31 infants and arrested 76 suspects in a bust of a multi-provincial human trafficking gang last month. Several family-style rings in rural areas in Wenshan were also busted.
China sees many cases of young women being kidnapped in poor southwestern regions and sold to rural families in faraway provinces over the past decade. The women are married off to desperate bachelors, while babies, preferably boys, are mostly sold to sterile couples not qualified to adopt.
Police rescued 8,660 abducted children and 15,458 women last year.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
