A commune in the province of Nghệ An recorded 22 women who sold their unborn child over to China for about 40 to 80 million Vietnamese Đồng (approximately 1,700 – 3,500 US-Dollars).
According to an article of the Vietnamese online newspaper “VnExpress”, mainly women from mountainous regions in Nghệ An province sell their unborn children.
Numerous women were contacted just shortly before the due date by unknown persons. Moong Thị Tho recalls the moment when an unknown person called her just after she went for some inspections at the hospital. This person offered Tho to give birth to her child in China for the price of 40 million Đồng (approximately 1,700 US-Dollars).
Tho’s family faces financial problems. People in the mountainous regions close to the border to Laos mainly live off agriculture and so does Tho. She and her husband do not own more than 10 million Đồng. Meanwhile they have debts as high as 30 million Đồng. That is the reason why Tho decided to go to China and get some money there to pay of their debts. She did not ask her husband on his opinion.
Shortly prior to the due date, Tho was on her way to the border town of Móng Cái (Quảng Ninh province) where she was brought over to China in total darkness by a stranger. After arriving in China, Tho was put onto a car and driven to an unknown place for many more hours. At this unknown place, there were other Vietnamese women. There they were accommodated until due date but they were not allowed to leave the place.
Due date: it was a baby boy. Mother and son only had a few minutes together. Straight away there was a man who dragged Tho to another place. He then gave a bundle of money, the equivalent of 40 million Vietnamese Đồng in Chinese Yuan.
Her whole trip took 40 days. When Tho arrived back home, she told her husband what had happened. He was sad about the incident but fully understood her. Lữ Văn May, Tho’s husband, tells that he does not condemn his wife for her wrongdoing but it should not happen again.
In the close neighbourhood is another similar case. Mạc Thị Hoa also went to China to give birth to her child. In this case, it was a girl and Hoa received 80 million Đồng in return. Hoa recalls the day of birth: “I only heard a few cries of my child. I could not see her clearly. I do not even know if she looked like me.” Hoa asserts that she does not know whether her actions were illegal or not. If it was forbidden she would not do it any more, she says.
Nguyễn Hữu Lượng, chairman of the Hữu Kiệm commune, affirms that there were 22 women, who went to China to sell their children there but as of now 21 have have returned to their communities. Lượng adds that the to villages from where the women come, are the poorest in the commune and also have the lowest education. The authorities are currently working on this issue.
The legal processing is also difficult. In some cases, both mother and child were sold but the sentence was only applied to the sale of the mother. The localisation of the child is difficult and that is why it cannot be called a victim in jurisdictional terms.
The local police already announced to intensify patrols and controls in the concerning areas.
Hoàng Chính – VD-News
