BEIJING: A Chinese doctor who abducted and sold newborn babies was given a suspended death sentence Tuesday in a case that drew widespread outrage with child trafficking a chronic problem in the country.
Zhang Shuxia, an obstetrician, admitted in court that she stole babies from the hospital where she worked and sold them. She told parents their newborns had congenital problems and persuaded them to give them up, according to the Weinan Intermediate People’s Court in Shaanxi.
In China, suspended death sentences are usually commuted to life imprisonment after two years.
Her actions were only discovered last year, when she told the parents of a newborn boy that the mother “had syphilis and hepatitis which could infect the infant” and persuaded them to give him up, the court said.
“She took the baby home, and contacted a trafficker,” it added.
The case exposed a baby trafficking ring that operated across several provinces centering on Zhang. According to online postings by the court, she sold the babies to human traffickers, who then resold them at higher prices. In a July case, Zhang pocketed 21,600 yuan ($3,600) when she passed a baby boy to a human trafficker, who resold the child for 59,800 yuan ($9,900) to a couple in central China’s Henan province.
Altogether, Zhang sold seven babies to middlemen who resold the babies in central and eastern China between November 2011 and July 2013, the court said.
Six of the babies were either returned or rescued by police, but one that was voluntarily abandoned by its parents and sold for 1,000 yuan ($165) in April later died.
Zhang worked in Fuping county in the northwestern province of Shaanxi.
Child trafficking is a big problem in China, despite severe legal punishments including the death penalty. Families who buy trafficked children are driven partly by the traditional preference for male heirs, a strict one-child policy and ignorance of the law.
The case has added to public frustration with China’s medical profession over rampant bribery and other abuses.
Chinese parents are sometimes willing to give up disabled children because of the limits imposed by the country’s one-child policy, as well as widespread social stigma about disability.
The two girls were also recovered, but another baby Zhang sold was later found dead in a ditch, dumped by a trafficker, said the intermediate court in Weinan, in the northern province of Shaanxi, judging her to be partly responsible.
Zhang received around 20,000 yuan each for several female babies, it added, while a male baby fetched a price of 47,000 yuan in 2011.
It sentenced Zhang to death with a two-year reprieve, adding that her actions “had a negative impact on society.” The penalty is likely to be commuted to life imprisonment.
A photograph posted by the court showed Zhang, 55, in a blue jacket and trousers, flanked by police officers.
Her repeated deceptions caused shock across China and highlighted its flourishing underground child trafficking industry, for which tens of thousands of children are believed to be stolen each year.
Most are sold within the country to meet demand fuelled by a one-child limit and traditional preference for sons, while parents accuse apathetic police of failing to investigate.
China does not publish figures on how many children are seized every year but said it rescued 24,000 in the first 10 months of 2013, probably a fraction of total cases.
Police have sometimes refused to open inquiries because the low chance of success might hurt their performance record, and have resisted pursuing families who buy the babies.
The country’s strict population control policies mean that most couples are allowed to only have one child, although its top legislature this month endorsed a resolution allowing couples to have two offspring if either parent is an only child.
So far five officials have been sacked in Fuping county, where Zhang’s hospital was located, including the head of the facility and the director of the local health department, the official Xinhua news agency said.
But the father of one of the children stolen by Zhang, surnamed Lai, told state-run media: “When hospital leaders came to see me and brought presents I threw them out of the window. I don’t accept late apologies, its too late.”
Prosecutors told the court that the trafficking ring extended across several Chinese provinces, and while the cases Zhang was convicted of go back only to 2011, reports said that she may have sold many more children
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