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Death sentence for child traffic
05/05/2003 13:04 - (SA)
Beijing - China has sentenced a man to death and his wife to 10 years in prison for buying and selling baby girls in a major child-trafficking case in central China, state media said Monday.
The couple were found guilty of selling 30 infant girls for 2 000 yuan (about R1&hnbsp;820) to 3 200 yuan each in Henan province's Hebi city after buying the babies in China's southwestern Yunnan province, the China News Service said.
They made a profit of 7 450 yuan from the sales, which they carried out for two years, from 2000 to 2002.
The case is considered one of the biggest in Hebi city.
The couple were sentenced by the city's intermediate people's court recently. The court also seized all of their assets and fined them 5 000 yuan.
Chinese officials estimate there are 10 000 cases of women and children being trafficked in China each year, of which 90% involve women and 10% children.
The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) stated in a 2001 report that in recent decades, more than 250 000 women and children had been victims of trafficking within China.
Trafficked children are either kidnapped or sold by their parents or other relatives, who are often poor migrant workers, according to Unicef.
Migrant workers, who leave their home villages or towns to work in cities, often do not have the financial means or family network to help them care for their infants.
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