The latest online sale: babies

Xue'er (pseudonym), 28, from Jiangsu Province, is seven months pregnant. Unlike most mothers, she will farewell her baby as soon after she gives birth because she is divorced and can't afford the cost of raising a child.

She's looking online for prospective parents. She already has a 5-year-old daughter and as a single parent, raising a second child would be a difficult task.

"When I discovered I was pregnant, I thought I could manage to raise the child by myself, but later I realized that I needed to face reality," Xue'er said.

Xue'er is not alone. In recent years, many desperate pregnant women have turned to the Internet. Online forums dedicated to linking pregnant women with prospective parents have abounded in recent years, providing an ideal way to circumvent bureaucratic adoption procedures.

However, with demand for babies much stronger than supply, a market has formed. "Compensation fees" in the tens of thousands of yuan come perilously close to legal definitions of human trafficking, placing these private adoptions in a legal minefield.

Children for sale

Although there are plenty of couples looking to adopt children, Xue'er's child hasn't been "booked" yet. Many of these couples have specific gender preferences, and those who want to give away their children often have requirements of their own, such as stable financial circumstances and warm personalities. Typically, mothers giving away their children suffer from poverty or restrictions caused by the one-child policy.

Usually, "compensation fees" are paid for children, varying from 30,000 yuan ($4,887) to 100,000 yuan. Xue'er is asking for a compensation fee of 80,000 yuan, which is relatively high.

"Most of the people who give away their children lack the money to raise them or even live a normal life," Xue'er explained. "Beyond that, bearing children and giving birth to them is a very painful process."

However, this in many ways is similar to human trafficking. Zhang Zhiwei, a Beijing lawyer who specializes in protecting children's rights, told the Global Times that a legal adoption process includes both sides living up to the requirements stipulated by law as well as registering with civil affairs departments.

"Involving money can make the process seem like trading babies and could easily lead to abduction or trafficking of children," Zhang said. "Child abductors and traders can sign up to these online platforms as well."

Many potential adoptive parents express their concerns over legal issues on online forums, saying that the large compensation fees involved may transform their adoption into a crime. Organizers of these forums specify that adoptions should be free of charge and ban members from discussing fees in group chat sessions.

Prospective parents also worry about being cheated. Shishi (pseudonym), a woman from Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, said that she was cheated out of 20,000 yuan but that she couldn't report the matter to police because her own behavior was illegal as well.

"I don't trust these online forums most of the time," she said with conflicting emotions, despite the fact that she still actively uses them to hunt for mothers giving away babies. "But the red tape involved in regular adopting procedures is far too troublesome."

Wrapped in red tape

The regular adoption process requires prospective parents to register with civil affairs departments - a necessary step in obtaining household registration, or hukou, for the child. Without hukou, the child would be unable to access basic services such as education or health care.

Many fail to do so, because they or pregnant mothers do not live up to the legal requirements, and wish to avoid the bureaucratic process. A member of an online forum claimed that he could help parents who needed hukouby issuing them with a birth certificate, at a cost of 6,500 yuan.

An operator of an online forum, who requested anonymity, said that many of the members are single or divorced mothers, and in those cases it can be unrealistic to register and go through the formal process.

Wan Daqiang, a lawyer from the Beijing Shangquan Law Firm, told the Global Times that using online platforms to exchange adoption information is legal, but carrying out the adoption without going through the proper channels is illegal.

Another option protected by law is to adopt children from State-sponsored welfare homes, which are under the administration of civil affairs authorities. These are the only facilities that can legally accommodate abandoned babies when police fail to find their parents.

However, the majority of children in welfare homes suffer from disabilities of varying levels and waiting for a healthy child can take a long time.

Staff members from the Beijing Children's Welfare Home said that many people are registered to adopt healthy children and the wait can last a year or longer, as healthy babies are less likely to be abandoned by parents.

Those who do turn to welfare homes complain that many welfare homes even charge tens of thousands of yuan in "donation fees," as revealed in recent media reports.

Government intervention

A recent report issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs said that there were 570,000 orphans nationwide as of the end of 2012, while a report from the China Population Association issued in 2012 claimed that the number of people suffering from infertility had reached 40 million.

A circular recently released by seven central government agencies tightened the rules on private adoption, forbidding any individual or organization from taking in abandoned babies privately. The circular aims to secure children's rights and prevent incidents where children have been sold.

"Adoption is no longer labeled as compassion," Zhang noted. "It must be supervised by the government."

Stressing the illegality and dangers of privately adopting children, Zhang said that civil affairs authorities and welfare homes should operate more transparently.

Wan said that the current strict adoption policy could be loosened in the future, but authorities would be reluctant to as they don't want human-trafficking crimes to increase in frequency.