China's Stolen Children

[W. Gray]

This was not pleasant watching, but I stuck with it.

For those who have access to HBO, there is a current program airing titled China's Stolen Children.

The documentary was made undercover but the participants were aware they were being filmed and their voices recorded.

Something like 70,000 known children stolen each year. It is probably a much bigger problem.

Part of the problem is due to the Chinese implementation in 1979 of a one child only policy. The government has recognized the policy has caused a problem and apparently intends to rescind by 2010 at the earliest. People unlucky enough to have a daughter will sell that daughter to buy a boy who will take care of them during their old age.

China has its version of missing children pictures on milk cartons, which is a set of playing cards with a child and a brief description on each card.

The film crew posed as tourists, changed hotels every three days, and changed the subscriber identity module on their cell phone after every call.

One man interviewed makes his living from stealing a child and selling it or paying for a child from a willing donor and then selling it for a higher price. He has had no other job for the past twenty years. He even sold his oldest boy when the boy was younger.

One under age couple interviewed: he was 20 and she was 18 or 19 and they were not married. Under Chinese law, they were not old enough to marry therefor the child would be illegal.

Under Chinese law, she would be required to have an abortion or pay a steep fine. Neither had that kind of money. They went to a farm to hide out until she gave birth.

They intended selling the baby. However, complications set in and she had to go to a hospital. The hospital reluctantly delivered the baby but refused providing a birth certificate. The Dr was kind enough not to report her to the authorities. The girl was sold at about two months.

There was woman who was secretly filmed who was selling her third child. Apparently, she and her husband refused to follow birth control, refused abortions, and had literally turned themselves into a baby factory for profit.

A central character through the film was a private detective who made his living recovering stolen children and charging the parents for that recovery.

[Catwoman]

That's quite a nasty business.  I'm not surprised that they had to use hidden cameras.  One of the things that has helped to civilize the world at large has been the advent of the use of TV/Cable networks.  There is no such thing as a secret anymore...somewhere, there's always going to be a person watching and recording whatever is going on.  In fact, I would even go so far as to say that there would be no Civil Rights as we know them today if it hadn't have been for TV crews, capturing all of the ignominity of racism up close and personal...there are those who really decry the 'boob tube' but I say thank God for it...kids stuck out in the middle of nowhere in all parts of the world get to get a gliimpse of what else there is out there...kids get exposed to educational programming, provided their parents are savvy enough, which helps them to be further along educationally when they get to Kindergarten than previous generations...even the parents get an education, if they watch things like the History Channel, Animal Planet, and the Discovery Channel.  Now that this piece has been done on children being stolen and sold, it will undoubtedly start the ball rolling for the international community to get involved. 

[Diane Amberg]

How true. They pick up a lot of peripheral knowledge that they don't even know they are getting.