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China Focus: Police urge surrender of buyers of abducted women, children

Xinhua, September 2, 2015 Adjust font size:

Chinese police have urged buyers of women and children to turn themselves in before Nov. 1, when amended laws take effect promising tougher punishments for their actions.

The amendment to the Criminal Law, passed by the top legislature on Saturday, stipulates that all buyers of abducted women and children will face criminal penalties. The previous law said buyers could be acquitted if they did not prevent kidnapped women and children from returning home and did not maltreat them.

"Those who voluntarily give themselves up before Oct. 31 will not face a criminal penalty, as per the original law," said the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) in a statement.

Under the revised law, lighter penalties may still be handed out to buyers if they did not prevent those abducted from returning home, did not abuse them and did not obstruct rescue efforts.

The MPS said it hopes the new law can be a more effective deterrent against human trafficking. "There will be no abduction if there are no buyers," according to the statement, which described the amendment as a "fundamental change" in the country's policing of abduction.

China has long had a big problem with trafficking of women and children, especially to the countryside. The lucrative market is fuelled by lonely men looking for wives and families desperate for offspring.

A big factor has been the country's one-child policy and imbalanced sex ratio, with families traditionally preferring boys over girls.

The previous criminal law produced an illusion that buyers were innocent, said the MPS. Once the new law takes effect, police will detain buyers after abductees are rescued, and harsher punishments will be handed to anyone who raped or otherwise harmed their victims.

Chinese police have recovered nearly 4,000 abducted children since the MPS established a DNA database in 2009, but combating the crime places a heavy burden on the force. According to a report in the Legal Daily, it costs up to 30,000 yuan (about 5,000 US dollars) to save one abducted child or woman. Endi