Doctor convicted of trafficking newborns

(Vatican Radio) In China, a doctor has been found guilty of trafficking newborn babies from the hospital where she worked. She is known to have given a trafficking ring at least seven children, one of whom later died.

The doctor was an obstetrician at a hospital in northwestern China. Zhang Shuxia would help a mother deliver a baby and would then tell the woman that the child had an abnormality or was sick. She would coerce the parents into signing away the baby, which she then sold to traffickers.

A court heard the doctor handled seven children this way, and was only found out when one of the families reported their suspicions to authorities.

Chinese media say in one case, traffickers paid Zhang 165 dollars for a baby, but the child then died and its body was found in a ditch.

Authorities are quoted saying they traced the other six children and returned them to their original parents.

A court sentenced the doctor to death, a sentence which observers say is usually commuted to life in prison.

But, they add, the case taps into frustrations in China with malpractice and corruption in the medical profession. And it underscores the problem of trafficking there: three years ago, police said they had rescued more than 13,000 abducted children over the course of a couple of years.

Listen to Alastair Wanklyn’s report: