Social Service Organizations Involved in Two Child Trafficking Cases

January 1, 2006

Social service organizations [fuli yuan] were involved in two child trafficking cases in November. Officials in Hunan province broke up a trafficking ring that included orphanage employees, according to a December 2 Xinhua article, and a court in Inner Mongolia sentenced traffickers who bought infants from medical clinics, according to a November 22 Xinhua article.

Social service organizations [fuli yuan] were involved in two child trafficking cases in November. Officials in Hunan province broke up a trafficking ring that included orphanage employees, according to a December 2 Xinhua article, and a court in Inner Mongolia sentenced traffickers who bought infants from medical clinics, according to a November 22 Xinhua article.

In Hunan province, public security officials arrested 16 suspects in late November for involvement in a trafficking ring, seven of whom worked at state-funded orphanages. The orphanage employees bought infants that had been abducted in Guangdong province, selling the children to adoptive families at prices up to 30 times what they had paid the Guangdong traffickers. In Inner Mongolia, traffickers bought newborn infants from 28 private medical clinics in and around Hohhot city and sold them to buyers in central China. Officials arrested suspects in the case in May 2005, and in November the Hohhot Intermediate People’s Court sentenced the leader of the trafficking ring to life imprisonment.

In 2004 and 2005, gangs abducting and selling children have become increasingly common, despite anti-trafficking efforts by government agencies and international organizations such as UNICEF and the International Labor Organization. The latter organizations stress the need for law enforcement agencies and civil society entities to work together to stop trafficking. An amendment to the Law on the Protection of the Interests and Rights of Women passed in August 2005 contains provisions strengthening the role of non-law enforcement agencies in the fight against trafficking. Due to unclear lines of authority among state agencies responsible for administering orphanages, employees at social welfare organizations are still able to engage in trafficking of infants, according to a November 25 Legal Daily article. In addition, adoption laws do not clearly regulate fees, allowing employees to sell infants to families for a profit.

For more information on the efforts of international organizations and the Chinese government to curb trafficking, see the CECC Annual Report section III(f) Status of Women: Trafficking of Women and Girls.