The Chinese plot of fake birth certificates on the baby black market

In China they realized they had a major problem with child trafficking in the 1980s.. The introduction of the one-child policy increased the supply of children sold on the street because their parents could not afford the fine of skipping family planning fees.. Or simply because, in a society that gave absolute priority to men, the person born was a girl and her parents decided to get rid of her.

The agencies that trafficked babies, at first, went door to door buying children. When they couldn't find them, they stole them directly.. Then, they began to move through cyberspace, opening clandestine adoption groups within forums and many of the country's largest social media platforms.. By simply filtering the searches with words like “adopt”, some results already appeared.

A couple of years ago, Sixth Tone, a Shanghai newspaper, contacted several sellers who offered babies for 90,000 yuan, which in exchange is around 12,000 euros.. “Our investigation revealed how China's major internet companies have become conduits for illicit adoption practices that put children at risk of abuse,” the post read.

In QQ, a messaging application that belongs to Tencent, one of the Chinese technological titans, filtering the search with “birth certificate”, there are still some lists with agents who offer help to clients to obtain the necessary documents and legally become parents of a child. That is, they get birth certificates signed by doctors. This is part of a wide network that has been in the news in recent years for arrests of doctors and public officials. The latest plot was uncovered a few days ago.

In Hubei, a province in central China, the director of Xiangyang Hospital, Ye Youzhi, was arrested for selling falsified birth certificates and child vaccination records to baby trafficking agencies.. The case was uncovered thanks to the complaint of an activist named Shangguan Zhengyi, who said that he had been undercover as a hospital worker for a year.. Shangguan published a series of records on social media linking Ye to these certificates, which were sold for around 13,000 euros each.

“The director collaborated with several intermediaries and used social media platforms. Clients only needed to provide their personal information and pay the money they were asked to obtain a complete set of authentic records created by the hospital, including prenatal care, hospitalization, delivery and discharge,” says Shangguan, who says other workers at the center also commissions were received for providing these certificates.

“They functioned like a mafia, with agencies that sold newborn babies throughout the country. Normally, they buy them directly from the parents. Although they also have connections with other hospitals that lie to mothers telling them that their children have been stillborn,” he says.

On Monday, the police arrested six other people related to a plot that spreads through a dozen provinces throughout the country.. Investigators are also connecting this case to a booming underground market for surrogacy, which is illegal in China and which uses these fake birth certificates to regulate the status of babies.