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July 22, 2011

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Couple sell their kids to surf the Net

Police in central China have detained a young couple suspected of selling their three children over three years and spending most of the money in Internet cafes.

The father, Li Longwang, 19, and Li Ying, 18, from Hunan Province said they didn't want their three-year-old son, two-year-old daughter and newly born baby boy back even after police found them at their new families, according to a report on Hunan's news portal, Rednet.cn, yesterday.

"Please don't send them back. We don't want them," the couple reportedly told police in Hunan's Jiangyong County when they were questioned in the detention center.

The report said the couple appeared not to be worried about their detention but, smiling, just asked: "When can we get out?"

The couple met in an Internet cafe in Huizhou City in Guangdong Province in 2007. Li Ying dropped out of school in Hunan and moved in with Li Longwang. She became pregnant and wanted an abortion, but her boyfriend's mother didn't approve and brought them back to their hometown in Hunan, the report said.

In 2008, Li Ying gave birth to a son. But when the boy was one month old, the couple gave him to their parents, saying that looking after the baby was interfering with their surfing online.

The couple sneaked out to visit Internet cafes some 30 kilometers from their village five times in the first month after the baby was born, the report said. Each time, Li Longwang's mother found them and dragged them back home.

The couple later went to work in Dongguan City in Guangdong Province.

Their second child was born in 2009. This time, the couple, now unemployed and relying on handouts from their parents, sold the girl for 3,000 yuan (US$465) to a family they met on a street.

But the money soon ran out, spent in Internet cafes, restaurants and entertainment venues.

To earn more, they decided to sell their elder son and raised 30,000 yuan via a middleman in February.

The case came to the attention of police when the couple sold their third baby to an infertile couple for 7,000 yuan, saying they couldn't afford to raise him and wanted to find foster parents for the baby's sake.

They were detained after Li Longwang's mother told police on June 15 that her grandson was missing.

Police traced the three children in an investigation that covered Hunan and Guangdong provinces and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Police said the couple, even though they were the parents, faced child trafficking charges.


 

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