The law is proposed by Zhang Baoyan, a member of the National People's Congress. Zhang has been a long-time advocate for women's and children's rights in China. Those convicted should get at least 10 years' imprisonment with a maximum punishment of the death sentence, she said. Child abduction and trafficking has long been a serious social problem in China.
A politician has called for an amendment to the Chinese law to impose the death penalty on those convicted of trafficking women and children.
The proposal was initiated by Zhang Baoyan, a delegate to the 13th National People's Congress in an interview with the media during the annual meeting of China's top lawmakers and political advisers this week.
Zhang, who has been a long-time advocate for women's and children's rights in the country, said that the current penalty of five to 10 years' imprisonment is 'relatively lenient' and not harsh enough to deter child kidnappers.
By adjusting the penalty to 10 years' imprisonment with the maximum punishment of the death sentence, Zhang stressed that it is time for authorities to demonstrate a 'zero-tolerance policy' on the violation of the rights of women and children.
The 56 year-old politician, originally from Tonghua, Jilin province, is the founder of Chinese website Baby Back Home, or Baobeihuijia, a non-profit organisation established in 2007 that helps families track down missing or abducted children.
Child abduction and trafficking has long been a serious social problem in China, with an estimated 70,000 children going missing each year for forced labor, adoption or prostitution, according to a previous report by China Daily.
Zhang said in an earlier interview with the Global Times that the organisation receives around 1,000 requests every year and most of the missing children are aged between three and six. Over half of the cases involve child abduction.
The organisation said it has reunited more than 2,800 families over the past 12 years. Just last year, 456 lost and abducted children were returned to their families, she added.
'The trafficking women and children is a crime that seriously violates the rights of citizens and obstructs social order,' Zhang said in a statement published Tuesday on Baby Back Home's official social media account.
'Trafficking cases often involve other crimes such as rape, ill-treatment, illegal detention, violent beatings, forced prostitution and even death, some of which many lead to suicide and mental disorders,' she added.
'However, due to the relatively light sentence, some criminals remain undeterred.'
She also called for a stiffer punishment for buyers, who fuel the trade but are seldom held accountable. Currently, convicted buyers of human trafficking victims face no more than three years in prison.
Zhang's proposal attracted widespread media coverage and approval from the public on social media.
The hashtag 'proposal to impose death penalty on women and children traffickers' has received more than 320 million views and 120,000 comments on Chinese microblogging site Weibo.
'100 per cent support!' one comment 'liked' more than 110,000 times read.
'Imagine your children being abducted and sold, imagine not ever seeing them again - the current sentence of five to 10 years is a joke,' another comment 'liked' more than 30,000 times said.
'These criminals have caused so much grief to so many families. They should have gotten a harsher sentence a long time ago,' one person said.
'On the other hand, buyers should get life imprisonment for their crimes - there will be less human traffickers if there is no demand,' another user said.
'At the same time, authorities should approve and promote more adoption agencies and channels,' one user suggested.
Although authorities have not published exact figures on child abduction rates, Chinese courts ruled on 2,806 cases involving the abduction and trafficking of women and children between 2015 and 2018, according to the Supreme People's Court cited by Global Times.
DNA identification tests is currently the most common method used by Chinese police to help parents find their missing children. In 2014, the Ministry of Public Security said more than 3,500 children have been reunited with the families through the national DNA database since it was established in 2009.
Why is child abduction a serious problem in China?
Child abduction is a serious problem in China, especially in rural areas.
One major cause is that the Chinese families prefer sons to daughters, resulting in them buying baby boys.
In addition, the severe gender gap - a result of three decades of one-child policy - has made it hard for Chinese men to find wives. As a result, teenager girls are sometimes kidnapped and sold as child brides.
Child abduction remains a sensitive topic to the Chinese authorities. No official figures have been released on how many children are kidnapped in China every year.
However according to a 2016 report on Chinese news site Caijing, around 200,000 boys and girls are reported to be missing every year. Among them, only 200, or 0.1 per cent, would be able to find their parents at some point of their lives.
The report also claimed that there are more than one million child beggars in China and most of them were abducted by human traffickers or forced to beg by their families.
Baobeihuijia, a website specialised in connecting families with their missing members, has conducted a survey on the kidnapped children in China based on 8,861 cases listed on their website.
The survey shows that around 64 per cent of the kidnapped children are boys and more than 75 per cent of the kidnapped children are under the age of six.
However, among those who are abducted over the age of 13, there are more girls than boys.
The survey also claims that children under the age of four are most likely to be abducted in China.
Source: Mail Online, Kelsey Cheng, March 6, 2019
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