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Female infant for sale on Taobao for 1 Yuan

orphan_taobao.jpg Taobao - the place where you can buy everything... even, it seems, babies. An anonymous seller put an infant up for sale on the online auction site yesterday for the low price of 1RMB. Of no surprise to anyone who's read of unwanted babies in China - this one was a girl.

According to the sales post, the baby girl was the seller's sister's and had been born on April 14, 2008 in Jiangxi. Since the family would rather have a boy, they put the girl up for sale, hoping someone would want to "adopt" her. The seller, registered under the name "Shoot520" had a seller credit of high, and a 97.25% buyer approval rating. The shop had a cell phone number and home address attached.

But virtually as soon as netizens posted screenshots of it onto forums, the baby selling post was quickly removed. "shoot520"'s store was closed and searching "baby" on Taobao only left users with a message saying "Sorry, the search term "baby" is termporarily not available."

When asked, Taobao said that the site does not allow human trafficking. As soon as it was alerted, it automatically closed down the shop.

Using the remaining clues, the reporter managed to contact the person who first put the baby up for sale. A man surnamed Yu admitted that he was "shoot520" and that the infant was in fact his sister's daughter. However, he said, they didn't mean to try to sell the child... only adopt it out. Already, many people had been in contact with him, but there was no money exchanged.

"The girl is my [elder] sister's baby, but her in-laws have been a single-family generation, so the in-laws really wanted her to give birth to a baby boy," he explained.

The article wasn't clear about what the family was going to do next, but we're frankly quite horrified. Yes, we know this isn't anything really new for China - the traditional affinity for men over women plus the one child policy has managed to increase the gender gap to 32 million more boys than girls under the age of 20 with no signs of slowing. We also get that this is probably one of the slightly less sad stories of what happens to female infants - at least she wasn't sold into sexual slavery (though we guess that would come after she's able to walk) or abandoned altogether.

At the same time, if all that propaganda and "women hold up half the sky" and economic opportunity can't change the minds of a good chunk of paternalistic misogynist parents, we're beginning to wonder what will.

What needs to happen in China for kids to not be put up on Taobao because they happened to be born with a vagina? We honestly don't know.

Source: Jie Fang Daily

Contact the author of this article or email tips@shanghaiist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Elaine Chow in on October 15, 2009 7:15 PM

Comments [rss]

  • Boss Dreamsberry
    sad news. I am from Shanghai ,and happy to discover this Site. I think TAOBAO should punish hard on those people!
  • licitatii

    Nice to be visiting your blog again, it has been months for me. Well this article that i've been waited for so long. I need this article to complete my assignment in the college, and it has same topic with your article. Thanks, great share. licitatii

  • yu888

    no surprise here, unfortunately, just a proliferation into modern technology by posting online what does happen behind closed doors. But blanket statement by jackarse trolls on a NY based website will sadly do little to improve the situation of said little girl, nor will it reduce the level of idiocy and self righteousness of many crap expats.

  • rhon64

    I'll adopt her

  • Elaine Chow

    Did you even read the post? I have no idea what you're commenting towards.

  • nanheyangrouchuan

    Elaine, you and the other westerners with Chinese faces act so proud of this friggin abortion known as China. This country is a sad, sick joke and the world gets what it deserves by hoping this country punts the US out of the #1 spot. 1000 years of darkness and strife under this system. But hey, this is much better than how the US does things, right? 5000 years of inventing everything and superior culture can't be wrong!!!!



    Will someone just please kill China and put the world out of its misery?



    And please, please adopt this baby girl. Her next stop is an empty well, the side of a road or to be raised by a brothel and become a career hooker in a factory town.

    And kill the family.

  • Rick Thomas

    Nan, have you ever seen the movie "American History X"? If not, I highly recommend it. If you have, then you'll probably remember the scene where the principal asks Ed Norton's character if anything he's done as a Nazi has made his life better. I'd ask you the same thing about your negative comments on this website. Ask yourself whether all that negativity is a good thing or a burden. If you're honest with yourself, you'll probably figure out it's the latter.



    You can either be pissed off all the time, or you can let your beef go and move on. But not both, at least not at the same time. Decision time, dude.

  • oakwoods

    Only idiots of your type will ever believe the 1-yuan joke.

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