WP/AP: China Arrests 16 in Smuggling of Babies

China Arrests 16 in Smuggling of Babies
Associated Press
Sunday, December 4, 2005; Page A26


BEIJING, Dec. 3 -- Police in southern China have arrested 16 people allegedly involved in kidnapping and selling baby girls as young as newborns to foreigners, state news reports said.

Thirty-one babies ranging in age from a few days to several months were kidnapped from the southern province of Guangdong and sold via middlemen to two welfare organizations in neighboring Hunan province, the official New China News Agency reported on its Web site Friday.

The report also said the ring, alleged to have been in operation for two years, sold some of the girls to foreigners. An investigation was underway to track down where the babies came from and where they are now, it said. The report did not provide the names of the welfare organizations....

***

China has an active black market in babies and young women, who are bought or abducted and sold to couples who want another child, a future bride for a son or a household servant.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120301026.html

given the one child policy and the elimination of so many girl children over the past 20 years. The first cohort is coming of age and finding that there is nobody for rural men to marry. Parents who eliminated a girl child to assure themselves of a son to care for them in old age are finding out that a son without a daughter in law is not much insurance.

How China deals with the surplus of unmarriageable men will be interesting to watch, to say the least. Expect to see kidnappings and possibly the importation of women from other Asian countries to supply them with brides, along with the sale of young Chinese women to the highest bidder in the marriage market.