China jails doctor for theft of babies

BEIJING

A Chinese doctor who abducted and sold newborn babies was given a suspended death sentence on Tuesday in a case that drew widespread outrage, with child trafficking being a chronic problem in the country.

Zhang Shuxia, an obstetrician, was found guilty of stealing seven children, the court said, adding that she tricked parents into giving up their babies by telling them the newborns were sick or had died.

The penalty is likely to be commuted to life imprisonment.

The doctor’s actions were only discovered last year, when she told the parents of a newborn boy that the mother “had syphilis and hepatitis which could infect the infant” and persuaded them to give him up, the court said.

“She took the baby home, and contacted a trafficker,” it added.

Doctors later told the parents they were free of both diseases, reports at the time said, and they raised the alarm.

Authorities recovered the boy, who had been sold by traffickers to a farmer with three daughters in the central province of Henan for 60,000 yuan ($9,800).

Also last year, Zhang persuaded a mother to give up a pair of newborn female twins on the grounds that one had died of a disease, while the other supposedly had injured arms and legs, the court found.

Chinese parents are sometimes willing to give up disabled children because of the limits imposed by the country’s one-child policy, as well as widespread social stigma about disability.