“A pair of young lovers in Chongqing Municipality sold their baby boy for 2,500 yuan ($366), Chongqing Economic Times reported Thursday. Police say the couple now feels remorse and wants the baby back.
The baby’s mother Zhang Yao, 19, met the boyfriend surnamed Xin, 21, through the Internet. The two quickly developed an intimate relationship. Zhang gave birth to the baby late November, but they have not married.
Police say the couple believed they could not afford to raise a child. On December 2, six days after the baby was born, police say, they sold the newborn baby to a man who gave his name as Li Yong. Li arranged to re-sell the baby for 10,000 yuan ($1,464) the next day, but his behavior alerted neighbors who called the police.
An investigation revealed that neither Zhang nor Xin held steady jobs and spent most of their time on the Internet. Their parents were reluctant to support them, so the couple decided to give the baby away – for a price.
Xin told the police that he had used the 2,500 yuan to buy a new mobile phone.”
Read more at Global Times
Oh no, Chinese teenagers are getting as bad as the British ones!!!
The iPhone craze is getting out of hand.
Kind of sad that they did that, even more sad that it was all for a phone. I’d be worried that they’d try it again after getting the baby back.
they must have been pretty screwed up to sell their own child to begin with
They don’t deserve children. They need to take parenting classes and be monitored by social services.
Despite what the headline says, reading the article makes it clear they did *not* sell the baby for a phone. That just happens to be what the child’s father used the money to buy.
It’s all still so, so wrong on many levels – but questionable headlines give a questionable impression. The headline reads as though he wanted the phone, so sold the baby in order to get it, which is incredibly screwed up and a far cry from the truth (which is also screwed up, but less so) – that the couple didn’t think they could afford to keep the baby, so chose to sell it.
Are you sure they didn’t swap it for a Westlife CD, a la Vicky Pollard?
Remember, an iPhone is for life, not just for Christmas, unlike a baby!
although indisputably wrong, provincial law in some areas of china states that parents of children born out of wedlock can be fined and in some provinces it is illegal to have a child outside of marriage. parents are sometimes forced to sell their children as a result of not being able to pay the fines, and a minority are forced by authorities to sell ‘illegitimate’ children. a similar offence with comparable consequences is breaking the one child policy without applying and paying for a licence to do so. i do not mean to generalise or be sensationalist, i am not saying this is commonplace, but it does happen. this case does seem quite extraordinary, but equally sad and perhaps not as clear-cut as it has been reported.
At the very least, they didn’t sell the baby with the intention of buying a mobile – they just thought they couldn’t look after it. (And they were probably right.) But introducing money in to anything always adds a touch of seediness. If they knew they couldn’t take care of their baby, they should have made sure it was given to someone who would take care of it, not just sold it at the first opportunity they got to a guy who was apparently going to sell the poor thing on, like a piece of furniture! Or better yet, they could have used birth control! How about that?!
Too bad you can’t castrate/sterilize them till they are a bit more mature …
People never cease to amaze me. It sorta makes you wonder wiath even how bad it is here, some people have it much much worse.
Hmmm you sell a baby, and use the money to buy a fancy phone. Putting aside the fact they sold a baby… but if your that hurting in the finances department you sell something, wouldn’t you like BUY something important with it? Like I dunno FOOD?!?! Unless they live in state funded housing maybe RENT!?!? At least that would make some sense. But a freaking PHONE!?!? Dudes we have to figure out the priorities. However XKCD this past Friday shows how babies aren’t that hard to get a hold of. http://xkcd.com/674/
I suppose you have to feel for them, they must have been in quite a fix to give up their baby for money. And if they’re regretting it now, then that’ll plague them both for the rest of their lives.
LC x
Is there an app for that?