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On February 19, police
from 27 provinces across China rescued 382 babies and arrested 1,094
people suspected of buying and selling infants online, China's Ministry
of Public Security said in a statement on its website.
The sting was part of a
six-month operation launched after police in Beijing and Jiangsu in
eastern China received reports of a website promoting private adoptions.
Potential buyers
Further investigations
uncovered a virtual black market -- involving four websites, online
forums and some 30 groups on a popular Chinese messaging platform --
that connected traffickers with potential buyers.
The ministry said some of the people arrested confessed to using the sites.
According to local media
reports, 27 suspects were arrested in the country's southern Sichuan
province, where 13 babies were also rescued. Another 43 suspects were
arrested and 11 babies rescued in Anhui province, in eastern China.
A woman arrested by
police in Leshan, Sichuan admitted to buying two baby girls from Wuhan
and Chengdu, in August 2013 and January 2014, respectively, Chinese
state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Another couple in their
30s told CCTV they used a Chinese website to buy a baby from an
expectant teenage couple in Chengdu. They paid 20,000 yuan (US$3,250)
for the child.
It is not known where the other arrests took place.
Major concern
Child trafficking has become a major concern in China, as traffickers seek to profit off a growing demand for healthy babies from potential adoptive parents both in China and beyond.
Last month, a Chinese doctor received a suspended death sentence for selling babies to a trafficking ring.
The woman, an obstetrician at a hospital in Shaanxi province in central
China, sold seven babies in six separate cases after persuading her
patients that their newborns were sick and should be given up, according
to statements posted on the local court's official microblog account.
The ministry said its
investigation into the online baby-trading networks is still ongoing. It
did not say whether charges have been brought against any of the
suspects, or if the trafficking extended beyond China.
