Hunan Court Sentences Infant Traffickers; New Orphanage Standards Due Soon

The Qidong County People's Court in Hengyang city, Hunan province, sentenced the head of a Hengyang welfare institute (approximately equivalent to an orphanage) and other alleged traffickers on February 24 to prison terms for trafficking in infants, according to a February 24 Xinhua article. The court sentenced three traffickers to 15 years in prison and six others to terms ranging from 3 to 13 years and sentenced the director of a welfare institute in Hengdong county in Hunan province to 1 year in prison. Hengyang city government agencies dismissed or censured 22 other welfare institute employees and local Department of Civil Affairs (DoCA) officials, including the director and vice-director of the Hengyang city DoCA.

According to the Xinhua article, beginning in 2002, the traffickers bought infants in Guangdong from individuals who had abducted them. The traffickers then sold the infants to welfare institutes in six counties in Hengyang city for 3,200 to 4,300 yuan (US $400 to $537) each. Welfare institute employees, aware that the infants had been trafficked, then forged abandonment certificates and arranged adoptions for the infants, some internationally. In 2005, Hengyang city welfare institute employees bought 78 infants from the traffickers. The China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA), the agency that arranges all foreign adoptions of Chinese infants, investigated the matter and concluded that no American families had adopted infants involved in the affair, according to a U.S. State Department official quoted in a March 16 Associated Press article available on the Yahoo News Web site.

Welfare institutes that have permission to arrange foreign adoptions, such as the Hengyang city welfare institutes, require a "donation" that prospective adoptive parents pay when they receive their child, typically between US $3,000 and $5,000. The U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou city, Guangdong province, reports (via the U.S. State Department Web site) that this fee is not a bribe and is a reasonable estimate of the costs of care for the orphan. According to a March 12 Washington Post article, however, the fee acts as an incentive to drive up the demand for healthy infant girls. Private U.S. agencies and individuals long involved in adoption from China dispute this assertion and other conclusions reported in the article about the alleged relationship between infant trafficking and adoption of Chinese infants by prospective parents.

Li Xueju, the Minister of Civil Affairs, announced that the Chinese government is in the process of standardizing welfare institute administration across the country and will issue new standards “soon,” according to a March 10 Beijing News article posted on the China Women’s Web site. Li noted that DoCA will tighten supervision over institute staff, and public security bureaus will increase their anti-trafficking capabilities. In testimony to the Commission at a March 6 hearing, “Combating Human Trafficking in China: Domestic and International Efforts,” a U.S. NGO official called for specialized anti-trafficking training for law enforcement personnel and judges. For more information on human trafficking in China, see the 2005 CECC Annual Report section on Trafficking of Women and Girls.