By reporter Xiaolan Pei
After her girlfriend left home and abandoned their two-year-old son, Wang, as the father, claimed that he was unable to raise the child alone. He then partnered with a human trafficker he met online to sell his son. However, the buyer turned out to be an anti-human trafficking volunteer. Yesterday, it was reported that the Second Intermediate People's Court of Beijing sentenced Wang to two years and three months in prison for child trafficking, while his accomplice Liu was sentenced to two years in prison.
The girlfriend abandoned the young child and left home alone
Wang, 26 years old, is from Daming County, Hebei Province. In 2005, Wang dropped out of junior high school and came to Beijing to work. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison for theft and was released in February 2006. After being released from prison, Wang worked at his cousin's garbage removal company in Chaoyang District.
In 2007, Wang met his girlfriend Ju who worked in a restaurant. They started living together after less than two months of dating. In March 2008, Ju gave birth to a boy. Since they were not married, the child had no hukou (household registration).
It was reported that Ju spent more than 10,000 yuan on medical expenses during childbirth. Wang had no savings, and his father, who had left the company after arguing with his mother, could not be contacted for a long time; Wang's mother, although she had saved some money, wanted to return to her hometown to build a new house and was unwilling to spend money. In the end, Wang's uncle and Ju's family each contributed money to pay the medical expenses. In September 2009, after witnessing a fierce argument between Wang and his father, Ju left home and never returned.
Claiming inability to raise the child, selling child online
Wang said that since he was alone in Beijing, he could only raise his son by himself, which he found very difficult, so he decided to give the child away. On January 27, 2010, he posted a thread titled "Adopt a boy from Beijing" on Baidu Tieba and left his QQ number. That day, he received many responses, one of which was from a man who called himself "Chen Feng." This man asked for Wang's phone number and soon contacted him, claiming that his cousin couple in Guangzhou wanted to adopt this child.
On January 28th, "Chen Feng" called Wang again and asked how much compensation fee he wanted. They haggled over the price of selling the child. Eventually, "Chen Feng" suggested setting the price at 66,000 yuan, citing the auspicious meaning of "six-six-six". It was later confirmed that "Chen Feng" was actually surnamed Liu, a human trafficker from Linyi, Shandong, who often collected such information to make profits.
On the day Wang posted the thread, Liu first saw online that a Guangzhou couple wanted to adopt a child, so he contacted them via QQ and offered to help find a child. Then, he found Wang's post about giving up the boy and began introducing both parties. After agreeing on the price with Wang, Liu secretly negotiated a 20,000 yuan referral fee with the adopting party without Wang's knowledge.
Anti-human trafficking volunteers posing as buyers
Wang said that after agreeing on the price, "Chen Feng" proposed to meet the child, so he took his child to the north gate of Beijing University of Science and Technology for the meeting. Later, "Chen Feng" proposed that the adopting couple wanted to see the child, so they used QQ video chat at an internet cafe in Wudaokou to let the other side see the child.
On the afternoon of January 29th, "Chen Feng" told Wang to bring the child's birth certificate because the couple wanted to meet the child in person. That evening, he took his child to a restaurant to wait for the adopting couple, but what arrived were the police. Wang was arrested, while the human trafficker Liu managed to escape back to his hometown in Shandong. On February 9, 2010, Liu was captured.
After Wang was arrested, he learned that the "Guangdong couple" who wanted to adopt his child were actually anti-human trafficking volunteers online. After discovering through online chats that Liu and Wang were suspected of child trafficking, they reported it to the police and cooperated with the authorities to capture the suspects.
After Wang's arrest, his son was first sent to the Beijing Minor Assistance Center and later taken back by Wang's father.
Lighter punishment due to uncompleted crime
In September 2011, after the Chaoyang court reviewed the case, it determined that Wang and Liu, with the intent to sell, jointly sold a child to others, constituting the crime of child trafficking. Both were accomplices and played equal roles. Wang had previously been sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment for theft and committed another crime within five years after completing his sentence, making him a recidivist, and should be punished more severely according to law. Given that the criminal acts of the two defendants failed due to reasons beyond their will, it was considered an attempted crime, and thus they were legally given lighter punishments. The court sentenced Wang to two years and three months in prison and Liu to two years in prison.
After the verdict was announced, both appealed. Wang claimed that subjectively, he intended to give up his child for adoption, not sell him, and requested to be acquitted. Liu also argued that he did not commit the crime of child trafficking.
The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court believed that after Wang and Liu agreed on the compensation fee, Wang attempted to sell the child to others and carried out the act of selling; Liu acted as an intermediary in the process of child trafficking and accepted benefits. Their appeals were rejected. The court upheld the original verdict in the final ruling.
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"Selling one's own child" is also treated as child trafficking
On March 15, 2010, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Justice jointly issued the "Opinions on Punishing Crimes of Trafficking Women and Children According to Law," which clearly stipulated: "For those who sell their own children for illegal profit, they shall be treated as guilty of trafficking women and children." At the same time, it clarified that the following situations can be recognized as "selling one's own child":
(1) Using childbirth as a means of illegal profit, selling children immediately after giving birth;
(2) Knowing that the other party does not have the intention to raise the child or not considering whether the other party has the intention to raise the child, collecting money and giving the child away;
(3) Collecting huge amounts of money that are obviously not "nutrition fees" or "thank-you fees" and giving the child away;
(4) Other "adoption" behaviors that sufficiently reflect that the perpetrator has the purpose of illegal profit.