Child abductor Yu Huaying sentenced to death in final appeal
(ECNS) – The Guizhou High People's Court has dismissed Yu Huaying's appeal, upholding the original death sentence handed down during her first trial for child trafficking. This decision concludes all avenues of appeal for Yu.
Yu’s husband, Wang Jiawen, was previously sentenced to 16.5 years in prison for child trafficking and other crimes. Starting in 1993, Yu, along with Wang and her lover Gong Xianliang, trafficked 17 children from southwestern China, selling them to families in Handan, Hebei Province.
One of the victims, Yang Niuhua, was abducted in 1995 at the age of five from Guizhou and taken to Handan. Stripped of her name, birthday, and family, she was renamed "Li Suyan" and raised by a woman who claimed to be her grandmother and a foster father.
In 2012, with the help of anti-trafficking police and grassroots efforts, Yang began searching for her biological family. She reunited with her sister in May 2021, though their parents had tragically passed away in grief over her abduction.
In June 2022, Yang reported the case to the Nanming Branch of the Guiyang Public Security Bureau. Less than a month later, Yu was apprehended by local police in Dazu District, Chongqing.
Before the retrial of her second appeal, Yang shared on social media: “I hope this is the last time I face Yu Huaying. I want to take the verdict to my parents’ graves to bring them peace.”
Yang attended the retrial with her legal representative, Wang Wenguang, as families of other victims gathered outside the court, holding signs with information about their missing loved ones.
In an interview with China News Service, Wang said that upholding the death sentence for Yu represents justice not only for Yang but for all families devastated by child trafficking. He emphasized that the ruling could serve as both a deterrent to traffickers and a source of emotional closure for victims’ families.
“This ruling should set a precedent for severely punishing child traffickers. While there have been death sentences for traffickers in the past, many involved cases where the trafficked children or their parents suffered physical harm or death. In this case, the court determined that the sheer number of trafficked children and the prolonged period of trafficking make Yu’s crimes particularly egregious, reflecting the judiciary’s firm stance on combating child trafficking,” Wang explained.
According to criminal procedure law, the case will be submitted to the Supreme People’s Court for a mandatory review of the death sentence. Once approved, the execution phase will proceed.