Chinese babies 'traded' online

[MarrickG]

NOT all parents rejoice when the stork arrives. Certainly, not Mr Pei Yajun.

The 21-year-old driver from Wuhan, Hubei Province, became depressed after he became father of his son, Yuchen.

First, his wife left him. Next, he worried about how he would bring up the child.

"I am only 21. I cannot raise the baby myself because his mother left me for someone else," he told Global Times.

In desperation, he turned to online forums QQ and Baidu and searched for someone to adopt the boy.

"I want my boy to grow up in a happy family, (with people) who can take good care of him," he said.

His case is not an isolated one.

Many parents in China, unable to find a legal channel to give away their babies, see online channels as a last resort.

Baidu Tieba, a popular online community, even has a section dedicated to adoption advertisements, the Beijing daily said.

"My baby is due in March, but I can't raise him or her since I'm only 19.

"I'd like to give it to anyone who promises to give him or her a good life," an Internet user named Lu wrote in Baidu Tieba's adoption section.

There was no shortage of replies.

"We want your baby desperately! My husband and I have been married for eight years, but we can't have a baby," said one of the 20 or so responses.

Thousands of similar threads have appeared on various online forums across the country, the report said.

Chinese law stipulates that trading in babies is illegal, as it is seen as human trafficking, a crime that carries a maximum of 10 years' imprisonment. The law also stipulates that legal adoptions can only be done via authorised orphanages.

But that has not stopped a huge underground market allowing the exchange of online information for trading in small children, without the complex legal procedures involved in an adoption.

Then again, if would-be parents took the legal route, the chances of finding a baby might be slim.

Waiting for Angel, an Internet user who refused to disclose her real name, told Global Times that she visited several orphanages.

"The only orphans left there were disabled," the 34-year-old woman said.

"If we need to pay 20,000 yuan (S$3,800) to an orphanage in order to adopt a child, why can't we just pay the parents directly?

"The child is what matters after all," she said.