Chinese baby 'sold by doctor to traffickers' is returned to parents
Couple say they were falsely told son would die from congenital illnesses, and seven more families accuse doctor
Tania Branigan in Beijing
The Guardian, Tuesday 6 August 2013 17.14 BST
Dong Shanshan is reunited with her baby son. Photograph: HAP/Quirky China News/Rex Features
A Chinese couple have been reunited with their baby son after he was allegedly sold to traffickers by a doctor at the hospital where he was born, state media have reported.
Dong Shanshan gave birth to the boy in Fuping, Shaanxi province, in mid-July. Police say an obstetrician, Zhang Suxia, persuaded Dong and her husband, Lai Guofeng, to give her the baby, claiming he would not survive for long due to congenital illnesses.
Seven more families have now come forward saying they believe Zhang trafficked their babies in similar circumstances.
Police told the state news agency Xinhua that the doctor was among six suspects now in custody. They have accused her of selling the boy for 21,600 yuan (£2,300) to two men who then sold the child on again.
The baby was rescued in neighbouring Henan province and returned to his parents following a DNA test to confirm his identity, said the China Daily newspaper. He appears to be in good health.
Police in Huaxian county, Henan, said baby's buyer, Zhu Shouqi, spent 60,000 yuan on the boy because he had three daughters and wanted a son.
Lai told the Beijing Times: "We trusted [Zhang] as she was from the same village as my father and had been doing the obstetrical examinations for my wife."
But when Zhang failed to show them the body of their child they became suspicious, prompting them to contact the police. Doctors at another hospital told the mother she did not have the diseases she had supposedly passed on to her child.
The Shaanxi public health department says it is investigating and will also inspect medical security at other hospitals in the province. The director and two deputy directors of the Fuping maternal and child healthcare hospital have already been removed from their positions.
Thousands of children go missing in China each year. The majority are thought to be male, and boys command a higher price because of the longstanding preference for sons.
While some of the victims are sold to families who raise them as their own children, others are forced to work in the sex trade or become beggars.
Charlie Custer, who spoke to the parents of kidnapped children in China for a documentary, Living With Dead Hearts, said some older children and even teenagers were snatched, but babies were an easier target because they were not so easily identifiable and had no memory of their former home.
Many parents had complained of receiving little help to find their children, Custer said, but there had been noticeable improvements at the national level in the last few years.
According to Xinhua, police have rescued 54,000 children since the government began to crack down on the problem in 2009. Measures include the creation of a national anti-kidnapping taskforce and a DNA database designed to help match stolen children and their parents.
"That's great and significantly better than they were doing a decade ago, but I don't think local police are any better than they were," Custer said. He added that in some isolated areas trafficking was "more accepted, or not reviled to the point where you will call the cops if your neighbour's bought a kid".
