Orphanage director jailed in baby selling scam (Agencies) Updated: 2006-02-27 09:19
A Chinese orphanage director and nine other people have been sentenced to
prison for buying and selling scores of infants who were adopted by foreign
parents, the government announced today.
Another 22 officials were fired in the case in the southern city of Hengyang
in Hunan province, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Police said the traffickers bought babies that had been abducted from their
families and sold them to welfare homes in Hengyang for 3,200 to 4,300 yuan
each, the report said.
"The social welfare homes then had the infants adopted by foreigners who made
donations," the report said.
It didn't give the nationalities of adoptive parents or say whether they were
considered to have bought the babies.
The group carried on the trade from 2002 to 2005, and trafficked 78 babies in
2005 alone, Xinhua said.
Employees who answered the phone at the Qidong County People’s Court, where
the case was tried, said they couldn't give any other details or say whether
authorities were trying to track down babies abroad. They wouldn't give their
names.
Phone calls to the local prosecutor's office and the criminal division of the
police department weren't answered.
China has a thriving black market in babies, often girls, abducted or bought
from poor families or unwed mothers and sold to parents who want another child,
a servant or a future bride for a son.
People involved with the adoption of Chinese children by foreigners have long
worried that parents might unknowingly receive children who were abducted or
stolen from their families.
They worry that baby-trafficking accusations could lead officials to limit or
stop the process that has given homes to thousands of Chinese children who might
otherwise grow up in orphanages.
Foreign parents often pay thousands of dollars in fees or donations to
adoption agencies or orphanages.
Earlier reports said baby girls bought by orphanages in Hengyang ranged in
age from a few days to several months and were abducted from families in
neighbouring Guangdong province.
In the case in Hengyang, Chen Ming, director of the Hengdong Social Welfare
Home, was sentenced on Friday to one year in prison, Xinhua said. It said Chen
is a fugitive.
Baby traffickers Liang Guihong, Duan Meilin and Dai Chao were sentenced to 15
years in prison and fined 50,000 yuan (£3,400) each, the report said.
Six accomplices received sentences ranging from three to 13 years, Xinhua
said.
Among the officials dismissed for negligence were Deng Guangyang and Zhou
Liqun, directors of the Hengyang and Hengdong County civil affairs bureaux,
Xinhua said. It said directors of the local welfare homes were also dismissed.
In August, two gang leaders were sentenced to death by a court in the
southern province of Fujian for buying 82 children from their parents and
selling them to families in Singapore.
The government has also announced that a United Nations-sponsored centre to
help women and children rescued from traffickers has opened in the southern
province of Guangxi, an area that has reported a large number of abductions.
The centre will provide food, shelter, legal aid, psychological counselling
and medical help, Xinhua reported.
UNICEF, the UN children's fund, donated personal computers, medical
equipment, quilts and other materials worth 100,000 yuan for the centre, the
report said.
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