Comments on: Murdering Parents to Sell Their Children

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 03 May 2006 14:07:58 +0000

Thanks Aaron,
My dissertation is actually an attempt to consider the consequences of applying moral relativity to the OCP in China as a virtue-centres (contra rights-centred) culture…

I don’t think I’ll be posting it here, but I might well write a few posts on the OCP itself, lemme have a think, in the meantime myself, Richard, and Admiral discussed a few points at the US state department figures immigration figures put this at 60,109 for 1990 to 2005. If anyone has even sat in a Café in Shamian Island, Guangzhou then you’ll have a fair gauge on the incredible frequency of this practice: foreigners with their just-adopted Chinese babies are everywhere, many with more than one, and the most I’ve seen was one [Western] couple with 4 Chinese kids of varying ages!

All of this definitely contributes to the demographic and gender-imbalance problems and I have extremely unfavourable views about the prevalence of the practice among Westerners. The same goes for the increasingly liberal laws, since 1991, allowing these adoptions, even before you consider corruption.

However, in the absence of evidence of a gender-preference by foreigners – mainly white middle class Americans – I’m not convinced there is any reason to think that female children would be preferred over male children. The reason 95% of these adoptions are female is the OCP leads to many unwanted female children, many of whom end up in orphanages and are then adopted by foreigners, and as you say, abducted by unscrupulous elements.

The individuals are still making only 4,500 yuan vis 15,000 from male babies, however, and even if the orphanages paid more for female babies, the male children would remain a “safer bet�?. If an individual kidnapped a male child they could attempt to sell them to an orphanage. However, they would also have the security of being able to sell the child domestically for a higher sum than a female baby.

It would also make sense to argue that many people who might be prepared to take the risk of abducting and selling a child to an individual would be more cautious of selling to an orphanage who might choose to report them, and of course not all orphanages will participate in such practice, making the foreign market much harder to access.

In any case there are a limited number of foreigners looking to adopt at any one time whereas the number of people looking for male children in China is astronomic.

For these reasons I doubt that the OCP can be said to have caused male trafficking to be “eclipsed by trade of female babies�? although I take your point, and accept that it may well be that the proportional increase in female trafficking is larger.

Thanks for your thoughts :)

By: Shanghai Slim

Shanghai Slim — Sat, 29 Apr 2006 08:39:53 +0000

(I would make a substantial bet that the female child she sold didn’t go for anywhere near so much).

Recently a baby-stealing gang was busted in Hunan. The baby-stealers snatched girl babies from peasant mothers, then sold them to orphanages for 3,000 rmb - 4,500 rmb. The orphanage, in turn, sold them to unwitting American couples in exchange for a 25,000 rmb mandatory “contribution”.

http://tinyurl.com/jw53d

If this is any indication, the affects of the One Child Policy on male baby trade may actually be eclipsed by trade of female babies, which are more lucratively sold to adoptive foreign parents. It’s extremely ironic that the parents come to China to adopt “unwanted” baby girls wasting away in orphanages, when in fact the demand is outstripping the supply (at least in Hunan).

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 05:46:57 +0000

Richard, Admiral, thanks for the feedback and the link.

I was thinking about doing a follow-up post after your comments but I’m not sure there’s much point because I get the impression you are just objecting in principle; and I struggle to find the rational basis for your argument other than “we disagree�?. The link between trafficking and the OCP is well documented, fairly intuitive, and widely accepted.

Even the People’s Daily takes the same view:

The trade is driven in part by China’s birth control policy, which limits most couples to one child. The limit prompts some parents to kill baby girls in hopes of trying again for a boy. A purchased child that is registered as adopted doesn’t trigger the large fines or other penalties imposed by the “one child” policy.

I wouldn’t worry about my grade Admiral, the dissertation is based on substantial research using academic resources and not just popular media sources from the net. You might want to consider the possibility that 6 months of research probably trumps the go-google-it approach adopted here.

Incidentally, there’s clearly lots of trolling going on here regarding the post titles and China in general, you’d probably do better to ignore it instead of indulging them.

By: the Admiral

the Admiral — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 01:01:08 +0000

Excellent post. I will make a link to it on my blog.
As far as the one child policy, I tend to not put any blame on it for this particular incident. There are so, so many, exceptions to the one child policy that I find it difficult to believe that it can be blamed for the incident. I would blame the authoritarian rule, lack of a rule of law, and the governments mis-guided social control (hukou system, one child) as a whole.

Peking Duck led me to your site, will make it a daily stop…

Cheers.

By: The Peking Duck

The Peking Duck — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 13:18:16 +0000

Is there anything they won’t do for money in China?

Yikes. (Story is already two days old, but it hasn’t been told enough. Unbelievable.)….