Yu Huaying, a native of Southwest China’s Yunan Province, was found to have sought illicit benefits by abducting and trafficking the children from Chongqing and Guizhou to North China’s Hebei Province between 1993 and 1996. Yu's behavior constituted the crime of child abduction and was sentenced to death by the Guiyang Intermediate People's Court on September 12. Photo: Sina Weibo

A court in China on Tuesday launched the second trial of an appeal by a woman sentenced to death for trafficking 11 children. She had already been sentenced to death by authorities on September 12 for child trafficking, which dates back to the 1990s, but appealed against what she said was an excessive sentence.

The prosecutor of the Guizhou Provincial People's Procuratorate who participated in the second instance believed that the facts are clear. The first trial's evidence is substantial and sufficient and legitimate trial procedures were followed, said the court, noting the first trial's judgment was accurate and the sentencing appropriate.

The defendant's grounds of appeal cannot be established, said the prosecutor, recommending rejecting the appeal and maintaining the original judgment. The court adjourned the case after more than two hours of trial and announced that the verdict would be announced at a later date.

Yu Huaying, a native of Southwest China's Yunan Province, was found to have sought illicit benefits by abducting and trafficking the children from Chongqing and Guizhou to North China's Hebei Province between 1993 and 1996. Yu's behavior constituted the crime of child abduction and was sentenced to death by the Guiyang Intermediate People's Court on September 12.

The case aroused widespread public attention in June 2022 after police in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou, received a report from a woman who had been abducted 27 years earlier. Yang Niuhua, 33, was snatched by Yu in Guizhou and sold to Hebei in 1995 for 3,500 yuan ($480).

Over the years, Yang, a native of Guizhou, never stopped searching for her family. In April 2021, thanks to a video she posted on the social media platform Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, she had a successful DNA match and reunited with her family a month later.

In June 2022, after she returned to her hometown, Yang went to Guiyang police to provide clues about her abduction. Yu was soon captured in Chongqing.

Yang said she would seek 7.9 million yuan in compensation from Yu, not only for herself, but also for her parents who died early because of her abduction. "I hope she can receive the most severe punishment."

A mother, Luo Xingzhen, whose two children were abducted by Yu in 1996, has spent more than two decades repairing shoes at a stall where her children were abducted, waiting for them to come back home. "I don't dare leave this place, in case my children come to me and I can see them immediately," Luo said. "The pain the traffickers have caused me is unspeakable, and the break in my family can never be repaired."

In 2000, Yu was arrested by police in Handan, Hebei, and served a two-month detention in relation to child abduction offenses, according to media reports.

In 2004, she was captured by authorities again for abducting children in Yunnan. At that time, she was using a fake identity, and was sentenced under the false ID to eight years in prison for child abduction, read the report.

Considering the large number of children Yu abducted and the fact that her offenses were extremely serious and had a great negative effect on society, the court said that it decided to impose the death penalty on her. It also stripped Yu of her political rights for life and ordered that all her personal assets be confiscated.

The court said that Yu carried out the abductions with a man surnamed Gong, who died during the course of the case. Two other people, surnamed Wang and Yang who participated in the abductions, have been dealt with in separate cases, the court noted.

China's criminal law has been amended many times for the crime of child trafficking. The statutory punishment for the crime of child trafficking has been strengthened, so has the effort to crack down on related crimes, Tong Lihua, director of a Beijing-based legal aid organization for teenagers, told the Global Times.

The Chinese government has always severely cracked down on the crime of child trafficking, and has launched many special operations to rescue abducted women and children. In 2021, the number of child trafficking cases nationwide dropped by 88.3 percent compared with 2013.

In addition, the government has been improving laws and regulations on the protection of the rights and interests of women and children, including increasing the penalties for those who buy children from traffickers, so as to fundamentally prevent the occurrence of such crimes.

Hidden behind the market of child trafficking is a huge network of human trafficking. To put an end to the crime, it is necessary to completely cut off entire chain of trafficking, including increasing punishment for each link in the chain and establishing a rapid response mechanism to missing children, experts remarked.