Chinese websites under fire for selling children, birth certificates
Staff Reporter 2013-08-02 13:53
An adoption websites. (Internet photo)
Under current regulations, legal adoption of children in China has to take place through orphanages and private social organizations. Thousands of people, however, are trying to match children and parents through websites or online discussion forums. Some have been identified as medical personnel and human traffickers looking for a quick profit, reports the Chinese-language Beijing News.
According to incomplete data, more than 300,000 households over the past four years have successfully found children through just one website, according to its manager.
Most of the individuals taking part in such online discussions adopted children by offering to pay a "nutrition fee" or "compensation" in private. They took advantage of legal loopholes and avoided talking about actual monetary figures on the website.
One of the websites, which claims to be the biggest website in China dedicated to adoption, said all cases listed on the website are "for public welfare." The site's information reveals that between 2008 and 2012, 789,203 babies found new homes through the site and that it had exposed 11 organizations selling children and prevented more than 700,000 scams.
The website told its users to avoid legal liabilities by offering babies "pro bono," so that it wasn't identified as a portal for selling kids.
The owner of the website pointed out that it is difficult to find healthy babies at orphanages with comprehensive information about their biological families and the adoption procedure in orphanages could be complicated.
A social organization employee from Beijing said there are currently 40 to 50 children residing at their facility, all of whom had some physical condition, with the most minor condition being a cleft lip. He said a parent needs to wait for six or seven years for an adoption.
In 2011, 26-year-old Liu Li from Sichuan sold his child for 24,000 yuan (US$3,900) to a woman from Beijing and was sentenced to five years in prison, with a fine of 2,000 yuan (US$325), for violations related to abduction and child trafficking.
A lawyer from Beijing stated that individuals involved in such violations could be subject to a prison term of between five and 10 years or even a death penalty.
China's adoption law stipulates that only children 14 years or younger whose biological parents are deceased, missing, or unable to support them can be put up for adoption, and that adoptive parents should have borne no biological children, have demonstrated an ability to raise children, and be at least 30 years of age.
Authorities in Sichuan told reporters that they will be working with other provinces to inspect such messages on suspicious websites and online discussion forums in their bid to curb human trafficking.
A children's welfare organization stated that after adopting a child illegally, the parents also need a fake birth certificate in order to register the newborn, which further results in a slew of violations.
A man in Nanjing spent 6,000 yuan (US$980) to purchase a fake birth certificate online.
Transactions related to birth certificates are disguised as online jewelry purchases. An online platform processed 24 such transactions in June, generating 160,000 yuan (US$26,000) in revenue.
