Chinese child trafficker with 17 victims sentenced to death

A recent court ruling in China has upheld the death sentence for Yu Huaying, a woman convicted of trafficking more than a dozen children during the 1990s. This case, which has captured national attention, saw Yu’s death sentence reaffirmed during a re-trial based on new evidence that revealed she had sold 17 children, a significant increase from the 11 identified in her earlier trial this year.

The story first emerged in 2022 when Yang Niuhua, one of Yu’s victims, reported her harrowing experience to the authorities. In 1995, Yang had been sold for 3,500 yuan (approximately $491) and had spent years searching for her family. With the help of Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, she documented her journey in hopes of finding her loved ones.

Ultimately, Yang was reunited with her family through DNA testing, but the reunion was bittersweet; she learned that her parents had passed away a few years after her abduction in Guizhou province. Her courageous report to the police led to Yu’s arrest. During the recent court proceedings, Yu was present as the judge delivered the verdict, which also included a lifetime ban on her political rights and the confiscation of her assets.

The court described Yu Huaying’s actions as driven by “extremely deep subjective malice,” characterizing her crimes as particularly heinous with severe consequences that warranted a stringent punishment. Although Yu confessed to some of her crimes, the court deemed this insufficient for leniency.

State media highlighted that Yu’s first victim was her own son, whom she sold for 5,000 yuan when she was in her twenties. The boy’s father, Gong Xianliang, later became Yu’s accomplice in these trafficking activities but died after her arrest.

Luo Xingzhen, whose two children were abducted by Yu in 1996, shared the profound impact of the trauma endured by families affected by this crime. She recounted spending two decades hoping her children would return to their shoe repair stall, the very location from where they were taken. “The pain the traffickers have caused me is unspeakable, and the break in my family can never be repaired,” she expressed in an interview last November.

Some parents of Yu’s victims have reportedly struggled with depression as a consequence of the ordeal, with many families fracturing under the strain. According to court reports, Yu established a “complete criminal chain” that involved finding children in Guizhou, Yunnan, and Chongqing and selling them in northern Hebei through intermediaries.

Yu had a prior history of child abduction, having been detained in 2000 and later serving an eight-year prison sentence for a similar crime in 2004. Human trafficking has been a persistent issue in China, often igniting public outrage when brought to light, particularly in cases like that of a woman found chained last year after being trafficked for marriage. The legacy of the one-child policy has also contributed to a societal preference for male children, leading to the trafficking of unwanted baby girls.