This is not a US case (directly) but it has resonance on several levels: first that these babies could end up in the US, adopted by US parents. Second, that women and girls are still at risk for simply being female all over the world, not just in China, not just in the US. For more, see Nicholas Kristof's book: Half the Sky. Third, were this to happen in the US I do not think it would not be a ht case because of our definitions that require "labor or service". What do you think?

July 27, 2011

81 Children Rescued in Raids on Trafficking Ring, Chinese Officials Say

By SHARON LaFRANIERE

BEIJING — In a significant illustration of China’s illicit trade in babies, the Ministry of Public Security said Wednesday that the police had rescued 81 children from a major child trafficking ring that had operated throughout eastern China.

Xinhua, China’s official news agency, reported that 13 babies were rescued in the city of Handan in Hebei Province, ranging in age from only 10 days to 4 months. Most were girls, the news agency said.

More than 2,600 police officers from 14 provinces were deployed in a sting operation on July 20, which resulted in the detention of 330 suspects, the ministry said in a report posted on its Web site.

Another raid earlier this month broke up a cross-border child trafficking operation in China’s southern provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, Xinhua reported. Eight children were rescued and 39 suspects, mostly Vietnamese, were arrested, according to Chinese media reports.

A senior official told People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s leading newspaper, that unless those who purchased children abused them, they might not be subject to criminal penalties.

“The cost of the crime of buying children is not great,” Liu Ancheng, deputy director of the ministry’s criminal investigation bureau, told the newspaper. He also blamed “the dreadful practice of buying and selling children in this country” on the traditional idea of the need for male offspring, especially in rural areas.