Buyers of babies should also be prosecuted

Parents at a gathering looking for their missing children in Zhengzhou, capital of Central China's Henan province on April 26, 2015. [Photo/CFP]

Bringing up a child is not an easy task for any family, poor or rich. In China, it is even more challenging for parents, especially during the very early years, because one of their top concerns is making sure that their child won't become a target for human traffickers.

It is not unusual in this country to see reports of a child that has been abducted, normally a boy under the age of 5. A baby can even go missing when sleeping in bed at home. In one instance, a gynecologist, supposedly one of the first protectors of the new born babies she helped bring in to the world, made a huge amount of money by selling healthy babies to human traffickers after telling the babies' parents they were still-born.

These are just two cases, but they linger in my mind.

I should say that some reports prove to be false alarms, often starting and stopping with social media, but many are true.

A shopping mall in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, even went as far as installing an alarm so that the guardians of a missing child can press whichever button is closest to them so all the exits are immediately closed to stop people leaving the mall.

Of course, the authorities have also taken many measures to prevent children from falling into the hands of human traffickers and to bring them back to their desperate parents. And those human traffickers do receive their due punishment in line with the law. But when we are talking about children trafficking and punishments for those who steal children, we tend to forget and forgive one crucial link in the dirty business - the buyers.

The trafficking begins with a potential buyer.

However, the law seems much more lenient toward the initiator of the crime. I can't remember how many times I have seen reports, either in newspaper or on television, about teenagers or grown-ups that have found their way back to their genetic parents, either on their own or with the help of government and charity organizations, after living with the "parents" who have bought them from traffickers for years, even decades.

Almost all media paint a very soothing picture of these scenarios, with the newly reunited families hugging one another surrounded by smiling neighbors. It seems as if the returnee has just finished a long journey and has arrived back home after a long absence.

Few reports even touch upon the legal consequences for couples who long ago bought these abducted children from traffickers.

Whenever I read or see such reports, a big question thunders in my head: What kind of punishment should these buyers of kids receive, who might, as a result of living together with trafficked children for a long time and hiding the true stories from them, have nurtured strong emotional ties with the child they have stolen from others.

Here comes a typical case where emotion overtakes laws. The genetic parents should have a thousand good reasons for hating the buyers, because they cannot easily forget how many sleepless, desperate nights they have been experiencing since their kids left them for an unknown place without saying goodbye.

But knowing their children have suffered a lot, the genetic parents really have no heart to rub more salt on their wounds by bringing the buyers of their abducted children to court.

There needs to be a stricter law targeting these buyers that sends them to jail, no matter how long they have been raising the children and no matter how well they have been treating them.

Only by doing that, can we send a strong warning to the potential buyers of trafficked children.

When the buying stops, the trafficking will too.

The author is a senior editor with China Daily.

suqiang@chinadaily.com.cn