Selling Your Skin

Grim news, indeed. In China, anywhere from 20,000 to 200,000 children are abducted annually, either sent into forced labor or sold to quasi-legal adoption brokers. A curious reporter from China’s Southern Metropolis Daily recently studied public court documents from 364 cases involving a total of 380 abducted children and 508 suspects. While many of these children were taken away by strangers in public places, the court documents indicated that child traffickers often have a willing accomplice – the child’s biological parents. In 40 percent of the cases, the child’s biological parents sold their own children to other people, who sometimes went on to traffic them. The court cases also reveal more about China’s marketplace for trafficked children. Of the 380 trafficked children from the court cases, 248 were male and 120 were female. Daughters tend to sell for an average of RMB10,000, while sons go for much more – an average of RMB45,000. One can only wonder if this will change now that China has further liberalized its family-planning policies.