Young, surrogate mother-to-be jailed for 10 years

We must admit that Shanghai Daily has some of the most curious captions around, but some of them do actually entice us to read on further! In this story entitled, Prison for a sleeping pill beauty cheat, we read of a 25 year old girl, Ma Jing, from Sichuan who was imprisoned yesterday by the Jing'an District People's Court for 10 years for robbing an elderly couple that had hired her to have a baby for their daughter:

The couple promised to pay Ma 100,000 yuan as reward for a child and 150,000 yuan if there were twins and they paid Ma 3000 yuan every month after they made the agreement. Ma tried artificial insemination in October 2006 but this failed and the doctors said she was probably not suitable. However the doctors said they would try once again later.

Subsquently, the old couple refused to give her the monthly salary, and Ma hatched a plan to rob the couple after learning they had just sold a 2 million RMB apartment. She crushed 10 sleeping pills into the couple's food, but the pills had no effect (our guess is they must have been fake pills!). The next day though, the old man collapsed, and this time Ma successfully drugged the ayi, after which she escaped with cash and jewelry worth 20,075 yuan.

With infertility on the rise in China, various companies have been set up that offer surrogate pregnancy services. These have attracted many women from migrant workers to college graduates to divorcees who are tempted by the compensation of 40,000 yuan or more. Various websites such as this one have also been set up to help bridge infertile couples with surrogate mothers.

Photo by Esther G.