Woman sentenced to death for trafficking 11 children: Chinese court

Yu was sentenced to death because the court considered her crime caused “extremely significant” social harm and the criminal circumstances were “particularly severe”, according to the post.

It said that instead of confessing her crime and expressing remorse, Yu intended to appeal in court.

Yu was born in 1963 and grew up in an extremely poor town in southwestern Yunnan province, Beijing News Radio reported.

Her son was sold in Hebei for 5,000 yuan because neither Yu nor Gong was capable of raising the boy due to their existing marriages, it said. Her son was not among the 11 victims she was accused of trafficking.

Gong and Yu continued committing crimes after Gong suffered business setbacks, according to the Beijing outlet. The pair operated together, living in a place for a while and getting acquainted with people in the area while searching for a suitable child to target. Once becoming familiar with the children, Yu would lure them away using snacks, it said.

Most victims were from low-income families whose parents could not pay adequate attention because they had to work long hours elsewhere, said Beijing News Radio.

Yu was detained by authorities twice in the 2000s for similar crimes involving trafficking children, it said.

Child trafficking has been a notorious and long-standing problem in China. From 2010 to 2019, the number of cases of trafficking in women and children nationwide totalled 112,703, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

A series of high-profile cases in recent years has pushed the issue into public consciousness.

In one case, a woman named Xiaohuamei – also a victim of human trafficking – who was found living in a shed with chains after having given birth to eight children.