Railway police in Shanghai say they have detained 47 suspects and rescued 21 babies in a months-long crackdown on child trafficking.
The sting operations since last spring, involving police in five provinces, cracked a major baby trafficking ring, with the most recent raid netting 18 suspected child traffickers and 12 babies, according to a police statement on the local government Web site, reported yesterday in local newspapers.
Many of the children were kidnapped from Yunnan Province and taken by train to Jiangsu and Shandong provinces. It was unclear if any of the babies were meant for families in Shanghai.
Nationwide, police have rescued 2,008 kidnapped children and solved 1,717 cases since the crackdown was launched on April 9, a report in the People’s Daily said.
Chinese have a traditional preference for male heirs that is particularly strong in rural areas, resulting in trafficking of boys. Some families also sell their girl babies in order to try for a boy, since the country’s one-child policy limits most families to having one child.
The Ministry of Public Security has said it is setting up a DNA database to combat child trafficking. The database will include DNA from the parents of abducted children and samples from children who are suspected of having been abducted or vagrant children with an unclear history.
Meanwhile, police in Malaysia have rescued six babies from child traffickers who paid women to deliver infants to childless couples for purchase, an official said yesterday.
Authorities have arrested 15 suspects involved in the Kuala Lumpur-based trafficking group, including its operations leader and two pregnant women, a city police official who spoke on condition of anonymity said.
Four boys and two girls — including one two-weeks old — have been rescued and placed in the care of welfare officials since police launched the crackdown earlier this month, he said.
The group promised to pay Malaysian, Indonesian, Filipino and Vietnamese immigrant women 5,000 ringgit (US$1,500) for each baby delivered, officials said.
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
RSS