Child trafficking convict executed in southern China

NANNING - A major woman culprit of a transnational child trafficking gang, Huang Qingheng, was executed by a court in southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Tuesday.

Huang's execution was sanctioned by China's Supreme Court.

Huang, whose nationality was not clear, claimed to be born in 1982 and lived in Vietnam. Huang and her gang were found guilty of trafficking more than 20 infants and children since 2010, according to court verdicts.

Children were smuggled from Vietnam to be sold in China, mainly in Guangdong Province, or pregnant Vietnamese women were sent to China and to sell their children after they were born.

Eleven of the children were rescued by Chinese police, 10 of whom were Vietnamese and sent back to Vietnam. The rescued were aged from 10 days to seven months old.

There were 23 members with Huang's gang, who are both Chinese and Vietnamese nationals. Apart from Huang, they were given jail terms ranging from 22 months to life imprisonment after they were convicted of child trafficking.

Huang was sentenced to death by the Intermediate People's Court of Fangchenggang City in Guangxi for being found guilty of child trafficking in a first-instant trial held in May 2014. She was also stripped of all her property. Huang appealed her case to a higher court.

The higher people's court in the region dismissed her appeal in January 2015 and upheld the ruling made by the lower court before submitting Huang's death sentence to the Supreme Court for approval.