A campaign calling for the death penalty for child traffickers has recently gone viral on Chinese online social networks.
"I firmly suggest that authorities revise laws on child trafficking. I insist that child traffickers be sentenced to death while buyers be sentenced to life. Why should they be given a second chance when the children they harmed don't get any?" wrote the advocacy that was posted by countless netizens on Weibo and WeChat.
The advocacy began to circulate online roughly after a China Central Television report on May 30 revealed a child trafficking gang in Henan Province that bought and sold babies across the country. A total of 30 women and children from 26 deals were trafficked between February 2008 and April 2013.
Of the 37 suspects, only the prime suspect received a death sentence in the first trial, while the others were given up to 15 years in jail. Buyers involved in the case were sentenced to up to seven months in prison.
According to a survey conducted by news portal sina.com.cn, 88.3 percent of over 21,000 respondents were unsatisfied with China's crackdown on child-trafficking and 92.5 percent said that the same punishment should be imposed on both buyers and human traffickers to stop the crime.
China's Criminal Law states that human traffickers can be sentenced to death "when the circumstances are particularly serious," but most human traffickers were usually jailed for several years.
