An
unemployed Chinese couple in Shanghai will stand trial for selling their baby
for the equivalent of about $2500 and using the proceeds to go on an online
shopping spree where they bought an iPhone, fancy gym shoes, and other high-end
things. According to the Telegraph, the
couple tried to justify their actions by saying that they were just trying to
find a good home for their child where the new parents could afford to get it
could get an education. This may be
true, but is belied by the immediate shopping spree. Theoretically, there was
the option of legal adoption as well, though that would not have come with an
iPhone.
According
to The Telegraph, Prosecutors also allege that the couple
attempted to disguise Ms Zhang’s pregnancy in order to hide their crime. In order
to explain her bump, neighbours were told she was suffering from a tumour.
This
comes on the heels of the US State Department shutting down international
adoptions between the US and Vietnam based on the belief that there was
widespread, systematic corruption in Vietnamese adoptions where children were
being sold for profit into the country’s adoption system: As reported in Foreign Policy: The State Department was confident it had
discovered systemic nationwide corruption in Vietnam -- a network of adoption
agency representatives, village officials, orphanage directors, nurses,
hospital administrators, police officers, and government officials who were
profiting by paying for, defrauding, coercing, or even simply stealing
Vietnamese children from their families to sell them to unsuspecting Americans.
And yet, as these documents reveal, U.S. officials in Hanoi did not have the
right tools to shut down the infant peddlers while allowing the truly needed
adoptions to continue. (See Article in
Foreign Policy http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/07/anatomy_of_an_adoption_crisis,
for more background).
Selling
children for profit is deplorable, no matter the motive. Selling them for an
iPhone is clearly not the type of consumer publicity Apple wants as it tries to
build a consumer base in China.
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