Gang that told sex of unborn babies busted
Print Edition
China has broken up a gang that offered illegal services to determine the sex of unborn children so that women could abort those they did not want, the health ministry said yesterday.
Three decades of strict family planning have bolstered a traditional bias for male offspring, seen as the main support of elderly parents and heirs to the family name, and have resulted in abortions, killings or abandonment of girls and trafficking of both male and female children.
The health ministry said the crackdown netted 10 people who had since 2010 operated a service sending women from all over the country to a clinic in Zhengzhou, capital of central Henan Province, to find out the sex of their unborn child.
Last year alone, more than 1,000 women used the service, it said, although it did not say how many abortions resulted.
A ringleaders has already received a jail term of three and a half years and fined 100,000 yuan (US$16,500). The rest of the gang received slightly shorter sentences.
The ministry said it was the biggest case of its kind in the past few years.
“This went on for a long time, covering a wide area and involved many people. It was malicious, had serious results and was a great threat to society,” it added.
The problem is widespread, the ministry warned, adding that it faced a “serious situation” in trying to end such abuses.
The government has tried for years to address the issue, which has lead to serious population imbalances in some parts of China.
Last week a court handed down a suspended death sentence for a doctor who sold seven newborns, in a case that ignited anger over child trafficking.
The imbalance has created criminal demand for abducted or bought baby boys, but also for baby girls destined to be future brides, attracting rich dowries in parts of the country where there are too few women for all the men seeking wives.
While the government late last year announced a relaxation of its one-child policy, many curbs remain, with the government saying family planning is still a key way to ensure China does not produce too many children to burden limited resources.
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