Page 7 - IJPS-4-2

International Journal of Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Child trafficking in China: Evidence from

sentencing documents

Yanyu Xin and Tianji Cai*

Department of Sociology, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China

Abstract: Child trafficking has long been internationally recognized as a serious crime.
However, due to data scarcity and inconsistent definitions, the scope and the nature of such
criminal activity are not well understood in China. To fill this gap, this study aims to provide
new evidence by digitizing and analyzing sentencing documents on child trafficking in China
during 2014–2016. Taking advantage of web-scraping techniques, all child trafficking cases
were downloaded from the China Judgments Online website. Through geographic mapping
and network analysis, we identified four geographic hotspots for trafficking - the Central
East (Shandong, Henan, and Hebei Provinces), the East (Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces),
the Southeast (Guangdong and Fujian Provinces), and the Southwest (Sichuan, Guizhou,
and Yunnan Provinces) and explored the connection between the hotspots and the gender of
victims. We further examined the association of provincial socioeconomic characteristics with
the frequency of trafficking cases and found that the sex ratio at birth and the number of legal
adoptions per thousand population were positively correlated to the frequency of buying and
selling children.

ARTICLE INFO Keywords: child trafficking; China; gender difference; illegal adoption
Received: February 20, 2018
Accepted: April 2, 2018 1. Introduction
Published: April 19, 2018
Child trafficking, a serious and grave crime against vulnerable children, has attracted
*CORRESPONDING AUTHOR global attention for decades (Gozdziak and Collett, 2005; Kangaspunta, 2003; Lee,

Tianji Cai, 2005; Staiger, 2005). Scholars in this area have spent a tremendous amount of time on
Department of Sociology, issues of international trafficking, yet domestic trafficking has largely been ignored,
University of Macau SAR, possibly due to the inconsistency in definitions of human trafficking that most researchers
Macau, China. tjcai@umac.mo have adopted (Larsen, 2011; Rafferty, 2007; Shen, Antonopoulos, and Papanicolaou,
Citation 2013; Weitzer, 2014). For example, according to the United Nations (UN) Protocol on
trafficking document, human trafficking is defined as “the recruitment, transportation,
Xin Y, Cai T (2018) Child
trafficking in China: Evidence transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by improper means (such as force, abduction,
from sentencing documents. fraud, or coercion) for an improper purpose including forced labor or sexual exploitation.”
International Journal of The definition emphasizes three specific elements: The act, the means, and the purpose
Population Studies, 4(2):1-11. of exploitation (UN, 2000). When studying domestic trafficking, however, researchers
doi: 10.18063/ijps.v4i2.817 might find that the exploitation-oriented framework does not fit a country’s legal system.
Copyright: © 2018 Xin Y and For instance, in the Chinese legal system, the definition of child trafficking focuses on
Cai T. This is an Open Access the abduction or trafficking of a child for the purpose of selling, while forced labor or sex
article distributed under the exploitation is only considered an aggravating factor during the whole trafficking process
terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution-Non Commercial (Shen, 2016). Therefore, such an inconsistency may hinder the effort to understand the
4.0 International License severity of domestic trafficking in the Mainland China (hereafter China).
(http://creativecommons.org/ Ren (2004) reported that, from 1980 to 2000, there were 10,768 children trafficked
licenses/by-nc/4.0/), ermittingall nationwide, meaning that thousands of families lost their young children and most of
noncommercial use, distribution, whom had little chance of ever finding them again (Shen, Antonopoulos, and Papanicolaou,
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is 2013). Although forced labor or sex exploitation might not be the main purpose of child
properly cited. trafficking - some victims were voluntarily sold by their own parents - the negative

International Journal of Population Studies | 2018, Volume 4, Issue 2 1