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1st Ld-Writethru-China Focus: Women, children trafficking declines in China

Xinhua, February 27, 2015 Adjust font size:

The number of cases of abducting and trafficking women and children continued to drop in China in 2014 because of harsh punishments the country has imposed for the crimes, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) said Friday.

Courts across China handled 978 cases of women and children trafficking in 2014. The number was 1,313 in 2013 and 1,918 in 2012, according to the SPC.

SPC spokesperson Sun Jungong said that courts have imposed harsh punishments for the crimes in line with the law, adding that abduction and trafficking seriously violate the rights of women and children, separate families and affect the stability of society.

A total of 12,963 traffickers and buyers have been punished in 7,719 cases from 2010 to 2014. Of those punished, 7,336 received severe punishments ranging from serving at least five years in prison to the death penalty, according to Sun.

He said the number of trafficked children who were abandoned or sold by their parents has now exceeded the number who were kidnapped or abducted.

The crackdown on buying abducted children should still be intensified, he urged.

There has also been an increase in cases of abduction and trafficking of foreign women, who are forced into prostitution in some regions and also frequently into marriage, according to the spokesperson.

The SPC also published details of eight cases of abducting and trafficking of women and children on Friday.

Lan Shushan and his accomplices abducted a 22-year-old woman and 33 boys aged from 3 to 10 and sold them for over 500,000 yuan (about 81,334 U.S. dollars) from 1998 to 2008.

Lan was sentenced to death and deprived of his political rights for life. All his personal property was confiscated. He was executed recently.

Some traffickers drugged the abducted infants with sleeping agents or carried them in trunks or plastic bags, risking suffocating them, according to the SPC.

In another case, Ma Shouqing and his accomplices abducted and sold 37 children from 2006 to 2008, with one female infant dying during transportation. He got the same punishment as Lan and was executed.

Yang Enguang and Li Wenjian received the death penalty with a two-year reprieve after kidnapping 17 Vietnamese women in southwest China's Yunnan Province and selling them. All the rescued women have been safely returned to Vietnam by Chinese judicial organs, according to the SPC.

Other cases include online infant trafficking, a father selling his own sons, and the purchase of an abducted child. All the offenders have been punished.

Sun Jungong said that the courts will continue to fight crime and adjust policies according to new circumstances to better protect the rights of women and children. Endi