People who buy an abducted child from traffickers will now face punishment, according to amendments to the Criminal Law adopted by China's top legislature on Saturday.
According to amendments made to Article 241 of the Criminal Law, those who buy an abducted child but "do not maltreat the child nor obstruct his or her rescue" shall now be punished, although that punishment will be lighter than those who do abuse children or hamper their rescue, reported the Xinhua News Agency.
The previous provisions stipulated that suspects were exempt from punishment if they did not maltreat the abducted children, which has led to controversies, said experts.
The amendments were approved by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on Saturday and will take effect on November 1, reported Xinhua.
A long journey
Courts in China heard 7,719 cases involving abducted women and children between 2010 and 2014, and in 57 percent of the cases traffickers received sentences ranging from five years to the death penalty, said Sun Jungong, spokesperson of the Supreme People's Court in February.
However, buyers seldom receive such treatment and in most cases are not punished at all, which contributes to the high demand for trafficked people, media reports. According to previous provisions, buyers of abducted children will receive a maximum three-year sentence, but "may be exempted from being investigated for criminal responsibility."
This means that many local police won't even file abduction cases since the suspect might be exempt from investigation, Ruan Qilin, a professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times.
The changes to the law "showed the determination of the nation's legislators against child trafficking amid appeals for a harsh strike against the buyer market," Zhang Zhiwei, a lawyer who specializes in protecting children's rights, told the Global Times.
China has seen a growing number of voices calling for the more severe punishment of those who buy children.
Apart from the pain parents feel at losing their children, due to the family planning policy, most parents rely on their only child to look after them when they are elderly.
Adoption woes
While a lot of attention has been paid to the pain of those affected by abduction, less has been paid to the sorrow of those who are unable to acquire children through natural or legal means.
China lacks a liberal adoption system in which a foster family can easily adopt a child as they want, said experts.
"If parents cannot get a child as they wish, they will not reject a child obtained in another way," said Ruan, "Especially in many rural areas, the concept of having a male child to continue the family line is deeply rooted."
Nearly 70 percent of the abducted children under 6 are boys, while girls make up the largest proportion of abducted children aged from 14 to 18, according to a report from the news portal caixin.com.
Many of the abducted children were abandoned or sold by their parents.
Among the 133 abductions studied in the caixin.com report, abducted children were sold by their parents in 69 of the cases.
Half of the rescued children cannot go back home, for some were sold by parents who refuse to take them back and some children's hometowns are too remote to be reached by authorities, said the report.
Finding and rescuing an abducted child is not the end, but the beginning, as the child needs to heal from the trauma caused by the abduction, reported the Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, quoting a psychologist.
"If the abducted child has a strong attachment to their foster family, a forced separation will also hurt him or her," reported China Youth Daily, quoting psychologist Li Xueman.
