This Chinese Couple That Sold Their Daughter Online To Buy An IPhone Isn't Alone In Not Realizing It Was Illegal

SoftPedia-  A young couple in China decided to sell their newborn online and use the money to purchase a new iPhone and a motorbike before being tracked down by the police and arrested.

Local media reports (via PA) that the father, who was only 19 years old when his baby girl was born, and the mother, whose age was not disclosed because she was underage, decided to sell their daughter online and started looking for a potential buyer on Chinese messaging app QQ.

They quickly found an interesting buyer who said he wanted to purchase the little girl for his sister. The father and the online buyer met and completed the transaction, with the young couple planning to purchase several items, including an iPhone and a motorcycle.

“I didn’t know this was illegal”

Chinese police managed to track down the young couple and arrested both the mother and the father to bring them in court. The judge sentenced the father to 3 years in jail while the mother received a two and half years suspended prison sentence because she hasn’t completed her studies.

“I myself was adopted, and many people in my hometown send their kids to other people to raise them. I really didn’t know that it was illegal,” she was quoted as saying.




Well, call me uncultured if you so choose, but I could have sworn that there were still newborn baby girls floating down Chinese rivers in picnic baskets, so I found this news to be quite the pleasant surprise. Not to say that parents shouldn't have to be responsible for their own children, but you can't make such a drastic change in the law and expect people not to break it at first. Selling human beings online seems like a pretty heartless process, but I think it's far more compassionate then feeding them to whatever is lurking in Chinese waters. At the very least this family should have been grandfathered in to the new rules of child bearing. If an Asian mom is adopted then she should be able to send her first born to better living conditions in exchange for a smart phone and a crotch rocket. I think that's a pretty good compromise for now. One day their societal value on children will meet their new legislation, but that day hasn't come yet and I - for one - am not surprised by that. Look how long it's taking America to rid themselves of this whole racism epidemic. Treating little girls like week old newspapers has been institutionalized into Chinese culture, and undoing that injustice is going to be a gradual process. A gradual process that could probably benefit from human transactions via CwaigsRist, because it's a pretty safe assumption that their 'Plan B' wasn't going to be to raise her to become a productive member of society on their own.