Babies for sale: children openly sold online in China
Child-trafficking rings have become 'more sophisticated', using the internet to sell abducted babies in China
![A newborn baby holds onto his mother's finger](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/VUg5pFjuaLXBLvbdcaiLUN-415-80.jpg)
Babies, many of whom have been abducted from their families, are being openly sold online in China, a BBC investigation has revealed.
Sellers are becoming "more sophisticated" as they use websites and online forums to sell children to prospective buyers.
Baby boys can be sold for up to 100,000 rmb (£10,500), double the price of a girl, as male children are valued more highly in Chinese culture.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
![https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516-320-80.jpg)
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
No official figures are released from Beijing, but the US State Department estimates that 20,000 children are abducted every year. The country's state media puts the number even higher, at 200,000, but Chinese authorities reject this figure.
"Once abducted, children are most often sold for adoption but some are forced to work as beggars for criminal gangs," the BBC's Martin Patience reports. "The vast majority of those abducted are simply lost forever."
The Chinese black market in children first came to the world's attention more than a decade ago, when police in Guangxi province discovered 28 babies in the back of a bus.
"They had been drugged to keep them quiet and then stuffed inside nylon bags, where one died from suffocation. The traffickers were caught and the leaders sentenced to death," writes Patience.
Last year, Chinese authorities uncovered four child-trafficking rings, leading to the arrest of more than 1,000 people who were caught using websites and instant messaging services to buy and sell babies.
Earlier this year, police busted a major child-trafficking network, rescuing 37 babies and a three-year-old girl in Shandong province. The children had been transported to prospective buyers in large suitcases and handbags, and many of them were ill and severely malnourished, CNN reports.
China's one-child policy has also forced some parents to sell their own children, to avoid receiving a severe fine. "There are too many babies born outside the family planning laws," said one doctor. "As long as the families make a deal and it's done right after birth, nobody needs to know."
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Did Kamala Harris kill brat?
Talking Point Pop culture phenomenon co-opted by presidential candidate sparks claims brat is over
By Jamie Timson, The Week UK Published
-
Paris Olympics: will it be a success?
Today's Big Question Organisers hope the 'spectacle' of the 2024 Games will lift the cloud of negativity that has hung over the build-up
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
Quiz of The Week: 20 - 26 July
Puzzles and Quizzes Have you been paying attention to The Week's news?
By The Week Staff Published
-
Iwao Hakamada: Japan's record-breaking death row prisoner
Under the Radar Former boxer spent 46 years condemned to execution but his retrial could clear his name
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
How strawberries are funding crime in Sweden
Under the Radar Police say illegal fruit sales turn over 'billions' of kronor a year for gangsters
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published
-
France's 'swinger' capital rocked by fortune teller scandal
Under the Radar Mayor charged with corruption for 'lavishing' taxpayers' money on clairvoyant who 'impersonated' his dead father
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Trump hush money trial: what has the jury heard?
Today's Big Question Former loyal fixer Michael Cohen proves star witness for prosecution, but Stormy Daniels's graphic testimony could offer grounds for appeal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Weinstein's appeal: a blow to #MeToo
Talking Point Is 'shocking' reversal of symbolic conviction a sign of weakening movement?
By The Week UK Published
-
Do youth curfews work?
Today's big question Banning unaccompanied children from towns and cities is popular with some voters but is contentious politically
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Sydney mall attacker may have targeted women
Speed Read Police commissioner says gender of victims is 'area of interest' to investigators
By Julia O'Driscoll, The Week UK Published
-
Why are kidnappings in Nigeria on the rise again?
Today's Big Question Hundreds of children and displaced people are missing as kidnap-for-ransom 'bandits' return
By Julia O'Driscoll, The Week UK Published