China upholds death sentence for Vietnamese baby trafficker

China's Supreme Court handed down the death sentence to Hoang Thanh Hang on August 16 for masterminding a child trafficking network between Vietnam and China, the Vietnam News Agency quoted Xinhua News as saying.

Hoang Thanh Hang was sentenced to death by China's Supreme Court. Photo from Shanghaidaily

Hang testified that she was born in 1982, in the southernmost province of Ca Mau. She was deemed to be stateless at a previous trial held in Guangdong Province in 2014.

Realizing that many families in the city of Jieyang, Guangdong Province, wished to adopt babies, Hang started trafficking Vietnamese children to China in 2010. The 34-year-old even lured pregnant Vietnamese women to China and then sold their newborn babies to Chinese couples.

In 2011, Hang set up a network of child traffickers that involved six other people. In just a year, the group trafficked 20 children, both Vietnamese and Chinese, before being caught in July 2011.

At a court hearing in May 2014 held in Guangxi Province, Hang was sentenced to death for child trafficking, but she appealed.

China's Supreme Court has now upheld the original sentence and denied her appeal. Her accomplices were sentenced from 22 months to life imprisonment.

Chinese police rescued 10 babies at the time of Hang’s arrest, the youngest of which was just 10 days old.

However, eight out of the 10 children who returned to Vietnam have yet to be reunited with their families, even though their cases have publicized through the media.

If their parents do not come forward, the children will be sent to foster homes based on Vietnamese law.