Daily Mail
January 2, 2014
A Chinese doctor has admitted to stealing babies from the hospital where she worked and selling them to human traffickers.
Zhang Shuxia told parents their newborns had congenital problems and persuaded them to give the babies up, according to court reports.
Shuxia, a locally respected and soon-to-retire obstetrician, stood trial on Monday in northern Shaanxi province’s Fuping county, according to online postings from the court.
Zhang told parents their newborns had congenital problems and persuaded them to ‘sign and give the babies up,’ the court postings said.
Calls to the Weinan Intermediate People’s Court and the local Communist Party propaganda department went unanswered.
The case exposed the operations of a baby trafficking ring that operated across several provinces centering on Zhang, who delivered babies at the Fuping County Maternal and Child Hospital.
Child trafficking is a big problem in China, despite severe legal punishments that include the death penalty. Families who buy trafficked children are driven partly by the traditional preference for male heirs, a strict one-child policy and ignorance of the law.