She sold victims

17 children abducted: Chinese woman sentenced to death

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/zolnierek )

From the 1990s to the early 2020s, a Chinese woman abducted and sold several children - for which the accused Yu Huaying was sentenced to death. Some of the parents searched for their missing offspring for decades.

The death penalty was already imposed in a verdict on September 12, followed by appeal proceedings, which the defendant initiated due to what she considered to be an excessive sentence. However, the court showed no mercy and declared in the second trial that the sentence was appropriate. 

Victim was sold for around 450 euros
The case was initiated in 2022 by a woman from Guizhou who had been kidnapped 27 years earlier and was looking for her family. She had been sold to Hebei in 1995 for 3500 yuan (around 450 euros) and turned to the police. Through a video she had posted on the social media platform Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, she was able to find relatives and eventually contacted the police with information about her abduction.

A picture of the accused in court:

This is how the executive finally caught on to Yu - the woman abducted as a child demanded a severe punishment for the defendant. Her parents died early because of the grief caused by the abduction. 

Another mother worked at the crime scene for 20 years
Another mother, whose two children were abducted in 1996, worked for 20 years at a shoe repair stall where her offspring disappeared. "I didn't dare leave this place in case my children came to me and I could see them again," the victim explained her suffering. "The pain inflicted on me by the traffickers is indescribable and the rupture in my family can no longer be healed."

The court justified the death sentence with the large number of abducted children and the negative consequences that the crimes also had for society. Child trafficking was a major problem in China for decades, which was fueled by the now abolished one-child policy. Penalties were therefore tightened and investigations intensified. As a result of these efforts, the number of cases has been reduced by around 88% compared to 2013.