A Chinese couple was reportedly caught attempting to smuggle babies from Ukraine across the border to Romania, sparking outrage worldwide. The two unnamed Chinese nationals timed their human trafficking plot while many Ukrainians were attempting to leave their war-torn country because of the Russian invasion.
However, their plan to smuggle the two Ukrainian babies out of the country was foiled at the Porubne checkpoint in Cerhnivsti. The Daily Star reported that alert border guards questioned the Chinese pair about their lack of paperwork for the two children.
According to local reports, the joint-State Border Guard Service of Ukraine and Romania discovered that the Chinese pair arrived in Ukraine without any children a few weeks ago. Romanian and Ukrainian police have now launched an investigation regarding the attempted smuggling of babies.
Human trafficking is a growing problem in China
Photos of the babies being cared for by Ukrainian border police have appeared overnight on the government's website. The identity of the babies' real parents is still unknown and their immediate future.
The story gained worldwide attention when it went viral on Reddit. One user in that discussion website wrote that China has a huge child trafficking problem. The Reddit user said that Chinese people kidnap so many of their own children, and it has no human rights.
Human trafficking has been a major problem in China for many years now, and it shows no signs of slowing down. The main reason why that is the case is that the country does not impose harsh penalties for people committing that offense. According to the South China Morning Post, buying trafficked children and women gets less jail time in China than buying illegal animals or plants.
The maximum jail term for someone found guilty of buying a trafficked child or woman is three years. To make matters worse, the person found guilty of human trafficking in China may serve even less time in jail if the court rules that the buyer of the child or woman did not abuse the trafficked individual or hinder the efforts to rescue them.
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Human trafficking case sparks outrage in China
Compare that to someone who bought illegal plants or their by-products in China, and their jail term could last for up to seven years. Buying endangered animals could mean life imprisonment or even the death penalty for the guilty party.
Talk of penalties for human trafficking surfaced last month after a video emerged of a mentally ill woman in China's Xuzhou city with a chain around her neck in a village hut. According to a BBC report, the Chinese mother-of-eight was found locked up in a doorless shed outside her home, wearing just a thin layer of clothing in freezing cold temperatures.
It became a hot topic on Weibo, with the woman's video generating more than 3 billion views. Chinese officials first dismissed the human trafficking claims but were forced to make a U-turn after pressure from outraged netizens.
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