A young Chinese couple from Fujian Province bore a baby daughter when the man and woman were just 19 years old. The two were unprepared to be parents because they were financially unstable and the man would rather spend his time on the Internet and devices.
Because of that outlook in life, the man from Tong’an in Fujian sold his 18-day-old daughter for 23,000 yuan so he could purchase an iPhone and motorbike, reported The Telegraph. The man met the baby buyer on QQ, a social media network in China.
The buyer purchased the infant for his sister. He then turned over himself to the police after buying the baby. But the infant is still in his sister’s possession.
The baby’s real mother, who also did not want the baby and was working only part-time, left Tong’an to begin a new life. However, police monitored her location and apprehended her to shed light on the sale of her baby. In her defense, the young woman said she was adopted as a child and witnessed many people in her village give away their children to other people, so she thought the practice was legal.
The woman was given a suspended two-and-a-half-year sentence, while the man was sentenced to three years in prison.
Infant trafficking, because of China’s 30-year-old one-child policy – amended only officially in 2016 to a two-child policy – is the reason behind the rampant trafficking of children. Some are kidnapped and sold, reported Daily Mail. Every year, about 200,000 young Chinese kids disappear and many are sold online, but the gang behind these crimes pass off their acts as having the abducted child adopted by childless couples.
This is not the first time that a couple has been convicted for selling their baby. A similar incident happened in 2014, but the young parents bought instead an iPhone and expensive sneakers with the proceeds of the sale.