Where the police have to 'manage' pregnant women in Nghe An

One day at the end of the year, under the bitter cold in the mountainous district of Ky Son, we followed Captain Nguyen Van Truong - Deputy Chief of Police of Huu Kiem Commune to record the familiar work of the police force in this mountainous commune.For over a year now, Huu Kiem has been known nationwide for its practice of selling fetuses, which Nghe An Newspaper has conducted a series of investigative articles on. In just a short period of time, according to incomplete statistics, more than 20 women in this commune have gone to China to give birth and then sell their babies. Each child is worth only a few tens of millions of dong.

Captain Truong visited and gave money to a lonely old woman in Dinh Son 1 village, a "hot spot" for women selling their children. Photo: Tien Hung

Captain Truong was originally the deputy head of the Ky Son District Police. After the new crime situation broke out, he was assigned to work here by his superiors. After only 1 year in Huu Kiem, everyone knew “officer Truong”. Every day, he would ride his motorbike to the villages behind the cliffs to ask each person, always carrying two pre-printed lists in his pocket, which were the lists of people who had returned from selling fetuses and the lists of pregnant women in the area.

“Don’t sell your baby anymore. Now, you and your husband should drink less and work harder in the fields. After giving birth, find a company to work for...”, Captain Truong told Moong Thi Chung (24 years old, Dinh Son 1 village). Nearly a year ago, Chung took a bus to China to sell her fetuses through the introduction of a woman in the same village. After giving birth, Chung took more than 50 million VND to build a house and pay off the bank loan. In no time, that money just “went out the window”.

Captain Truong urged a woman who had just returned from selling her child "not to go to China to sell her child again". Photo: Tien Hung

Not long after, the Khmu woman became pregnant again. By now, the fetus was in its seventh month, the time when most women usually cross the border to China to wait to give birth and sell their babies. Because of the fear that Chung would sell his child again, in recent months, the small house by the stream of her and her husband had become a familiar destination for Captain Truong and his colleagues.

In addition to maintaining order and security in the locality, they also have another task: managing pregnant women. They have to make a list of pregnant women, and then have to check at least once every day, even though some villages are more than 20 km away from the commune center through the forest.

Despite such strict management, in the past, there were 2 women in Dinh Son 2 village who secretly went to China to sell their children. “People here often have fields far away in the forest, they often go there to work and then sleep. So the first day this woman left home, we asked her, she said she was going to the fields, and she would come back the next day. That made us trust her, but on the 4th time she said she was going to the fields and then went straight to National Highway 7 to catch a bus to Quang Ninh to cross the border to sell her child,” Captain Truong said. However, both were later stopped by the authorities in Quang Ninh and returned to their hometown before they could sell the fetus.

Like Captain Truong, in Huu Lap commune, Sergeant Xong Ba Vu recently had to take on a new task: managing pregnant women. Photo: Tien Hung

Like Captain Truong, for more than a year now, managing pregnant women has been the new task of Sergeant Xong Ba Vu, Ky Son District Police in charge of Huu Lap Commune. “It’s very hard, brother. The area is far away, people here often have to go to the fields, but every few days we have to check and encourage them not to sell their children. Meanwhile, there are also many brokers here, luring women to go to China to sell their children,” Sergeant Vu shared.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Luong - Chairman of the People's Committee of Huu Kiem Commune said that the authorities need to soon have sanctions to handle this new type of crime. "We cannot let the police do population work and manage pregnant people like that. Because they have not committed any violations, they are just pregnant, and wherever they go is their right. Even the police have no right to stop them. We propose to soon supplement the law to handle this crime," said Mr. Luong.

This woman in Dinh Son 1 village just sold her child in China and returned in February 2019. Now she is pregnant again and is about to give birth. Photo: Tien Hung

Major General Nguyen Huu Cau - Director of Nghe An Provincial Police said that this is a new trick of human traffickers. This trick has just emerged since the beginning of 2018 until now, mainly focusing on the Khmu people in Ky Son district. Regarding this new type of crime, Nghe An Police also discussed with the Procuracy and the Criminal Police Department (Ministry of Public Security), even sent documents asking for opinions from many Central Ministries and branches, but up to now there has been no specific handling direction.

According to Mr. Cau, in the 2017 Revised Penal Code, there are 5 crimes related to human trafficking but do not mention the sale of fetuses. Specifically, Article 150 of this Code stipulates the crime of Human Trafficking; Article 151 stipulates the crime of Trafficking in persons under 16 years of age; Article 152 stipulates the crime of Swapping persons under 1 year of age; Article 153 stipulates the crime of Appropriating persons under 16 years of age; Article 154 stipulates the crime of Buying, selling or appropriating human tissues or body parts.

Police in many communes in Ky Son recently always have lists of pregnant women. Photo: Tien Hung

“Meanwhile, to constitute a crime, there must be a victim. In these cases, there is no victim, so it cannot be handled. The victims here are the children, the fetuses. But many legal experts believe that the fetus is not a human being. Because who knows, the fetus may have been damaged before birth, or died right after birth,” Mr. Cau said.

To handle this behavior, according to the head of Nghe An Police, there are currently two ways. The first way is to re-sign the Judicial Assistance Agreement between Vietnam and China. "This agreement was signed in 1998, now it needs to be changed and revised to create conditions for our police to go there, or for the Chinese police to extradite them to Vietnam for us to handle." The second way, according to Mr. Cau, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme People's Procuracy and the Supreme People's Court need to soon have a joint circular to guide the handling of this behavior. However, in the long term, it is also necessary to soon include this behavior in the Criminal Code.

But after a year of petitioning, no solution has been proposed yet. Recently, at the National Assembly, Major General Nguyen Huu Cau continued to talk about this situation. Discussing the draft revised Investment Law, Mr. Cau said that fetuses should be included in the list of prohibited goods for trading.