中國父母無錢撫養被迫網上棄嬰

Lu Libing knew he had only one choice as the birth of his third child approached. He couldn't afford hefty fines that would be meted out by Chinese authorities, so he put the unborn child up for adoption.

陸禮冰（音）知道，面臨即將出生的第三個孩子，他只有一種選擇。因爲付不起中國政府要求的高額罰款，他決定把即將出生的孩子給別人收養。

On the Internet he found "A Home Where Dreams Come True", a website touted as China's biggest online adoption forum, part of an industry that has been largely unregulated for years.

他在網上發現了名爲“圓夢之家”的網站，它被吹捧爲中國最大的網上收養平臺，屬於一個多年來基本不受監管的行業。

Expectant couples, unwilling or unable to keep their children, go to the website looking for adoptive parents rather than abort their babies or abandon them.

準父母們因爲不想或無法撫養孩子，就會在這個網站尋找孩子的養父母，而非選擇墮胎或者拋棄孩子。

There are no clear statistics on how many people use these websites but "A Home Where Dreams Come True" said 37,841 babies had been adopted through its website from 2007 to August 2012.

沒有明確的數據統計使用這類網站的人數。但是，“圓夢之家”網站稱，從2007年到2012年的八月，有37,841個嬰兒通過該網站得到收養。

More than 380 babies were rescued and 1,094 people arrested when the government cracked down on the industry last month. Adoption websites such as "A Home Where Dreams Come True", whose founder was arrested, were shut because they were deemed illegal and responsible for the trafficking of babies.

上個月，政府打壓該行業，逮捕了1094個人，並救出380多個嬰兒。包括“圓夢之家”在內的衆多收養網站的創始人遭到逮捕，網站也被關停，因爲他們涉嫌非法販賣嬰兒，對此負有責任。

An official with China's state-run adoption agency, the China Centre for Children's Welfare and Adoption, said parents could apply to the civil affairs ministry to give up children.

中國兒童福利和收養中心是中國官方收養機構，一位該機構的官員稱：“父母可以向民政部門申請放棄撫養孩子”。

The official, who declined to be identified, said it was "definitely wrong" to use websites.

這位不願透露姓名的官員稱，使用這些網站是“絕對錯誤”的。

"These are children, not commodities," the official said.

他說：“他們是孩子，並不是商品”。

Baby trafficking has been a perennial problem in China and recent reports on online trafficking rings show how an underground industry has made use of the Internet to connect people quickly, making it easier to buy and sell babies. This has presented a new challenge for the government.

在中國，拐賣兒童一直是個長期存在的問題。而且最近關於販賣團伙的報道揭示了地下行業是如何使用網絡快速聯繫買賣雙方，從而更容易買賣嬰兒。對政府來說，這是一項新的挑戰。

Demand for such websites has been fuelled by rural poverty, China's one-child policy, limiting most couples of only one child, and desperate, childless couples.

對此類網站需求起推動作用的是以下原因：農村的貧困情況、中國的計劃生育政策、限制大多數夫妻只能有一個孩子以及那些絕望的無子女夫妻。

Lu, 30, who asked to use a pseudonym for fear of official retribution, lives on the outskirts of Ganzhou in southern JiangXi province, a barren place scarred by water contamination and heavy metal pollution.

30歲的陸先生住在江西省南部的贛州郊區，水污染和重金屬污染給這個貧瘠的地方帶來了嚴重的影響。爲了避免政府的懲罰，他要求使用化名。

He and his wife, Mu, live from hand to mouth in a two-bedroom home in an unfinished block. Their two children, aged two-and-a-half and 10 months, live with Lu's parents in northern Shaanxi province.

他和妻子穆女士住在一間未供完按揭的兩室房屋，收入勉強餬口。他們有兩個孩子，一個兩歲半，一個只有十個月大，都跟着爺爺奶奶住在陝北。

"SEEKING HONEST FAMILIES"

“尋找可靠的家庭”

He says he would have to pay family planning fines of about 50,000 yuan to 80,000 yuan ($8,000-$12,800) for the third child, more than 10 times his monthly income.

陸說，因爲第三個孩子，他不得不支付計劃生育的罰款，數額高達5萬到8萬元不等(8千—1.28萬美元)，這些錢比他月收入的十倍還多。

Mu is five months pregnant. Lu wrote on his first post on the website on February 24 that he could not raise the child and was "seeking honest families who are willing to adopt".

穆太太已經有五個月的身孕了。2月24號，陸在網站上發了第一個帖子，說他無力撫養孩子，並且在尋找那些“願意收養孩子的可靠家庭”。

The post drew 40 responses. During his interview with Reuters he received a call from a prospective adoptive mother who was worried he may have been arrested after state media reported on the crackdown earlier that day.

該帖子得到了40個回覆。當天早上，在官方媒體報道了政府對此行業打壓之後，陸接到孩子未來養母的電話，她擔心陸可能已經被捕了。那時陸正接受路透社記者的採訪。

Lu said there was no hope of sending the new child to school or paying the necessary fines to secure a "hukou", or household registration. Failure to pay would make his baby an undocumented "black child" with no access to schooling or healthcare.

陸說，送第三個孩子上學，或爲了給孩子上戶口而支付必要的罰款都是不可能的事。付不起罰款，他的孩子就成了非法的“黑戶”，不能享有教育和醫療服務。

Baby trafficking has been encouraged by the one-child policy and a traditional bias for sons, who support elderly parents and continue the family name, leading to the abandonment of girls. Even as China starts to relax the one-child policy, allowing millions of families to have a second child, it still penalizes people who flout the rules.

由於計劃生育政策和傳統的重男輕女觀念助長了販賣嬰兒的風氣。因爲兒子可以撫養年邁的父母並延續家族的姓氏，所以女兒往往遭到人們的拋棄。即使中國開始放鬆單獨一胎的政策，允許成千上萬的家庭生第二胎，但它依然懲罰那些違反規定的人。

Traffickers have often resorted to kidnapping. In late February, state news agency Xinhua warned parents to guard against kidnappers who could pose as nurses in hospitals or lie in wait outside school gates.

人販子常常採取誘拐兒童的手段。二月下旬，新華社提醒父母防範誘拐者，這些人可能裝作醫院的護士，或者在校門外埋伏以待。

The increasing use of websites is changing adoption from what was once a hush-hush process between friends to one where details can be shared anonymously with strangers over the Tencent QQ instant messaging service.

越來越多的人使用收養網站，這讓收養過程從原本的朋友間祕密進行變成了通過騰訊即時聊天工具匿名與陌生人談論細節。

Many Chinese Internet users were outraged after media reports of the crackdown.

在媒體報道打壓事件之後，許多中國網民義憤填膺。

Much of the anger was directed at Zhou Daifu, the 27-year-old founder of "A Home Where Dreams Come True". Zhou denied being involved in baby trafficking but acknowledged that traffickers surfed his website.

大部分人把憤怒的矛頭都指向了27歲的“圓夢之家”創始人周代富。雖然周否認參與販賣兒童，但是他承認人販子曾瀏覽過其網站。

"Whenever we find suspicious cases of human trafficking, we always tell the police," he told Reuters in December. "But it seems to me that they just don't care."

他於去年12月份對路透社說道：“我們一發現有可疑的人口販賣情況都會報警，但是在我看來，他們根本就不怕。”

"GRATITUDE FEES"

“感恩費”

Reuters spoke to three "agents" who used Zhou's website to sell children. One, a man who declined to be named and was brokering the adoption of three girls, said he gave several thousand yuan to the birth parents and charged the adoptive parents more than 10,000 yuan.

路透社與三個使用過周的網站賣出孩子的“中介”進行對話。其中一名男子拒絕透露真實姓名，他促成了三個女孩的收養。他表示，自己給了孩子的親生父母幾千塊錢，然後向養父母索取一萬多元。

About 70 percent of the parents giving their babies away asked for 30,000 to 50,000 yuan, Zhou said.

周說，大約有70%的棄養父母要求獲取3萬到5萬元的補償。

It is unclear whether such parents could face criminal charges. China's Supreme People's Court said selling children for profit constituted trafficking, although accepting "fees for nutrition" and a "gratitude fee" were not illegal.

目前還不清楚這些父母是否會面臨刑事起訴。中國最高人民法院稱，爲了盈利而售賣孩子是非法交易，但是接受‘營養費’和‘感恩費’並不違法。

Yi Yi, a Beijing-based adoption lawyer, believes such websites should be regulated but not banned, saying they meet the needs of a growing population.

北京的一名收養法律師易毅（音譯）認爲這類網站應該進行監管而不是遭到禁止，因爲它們滿足了不斷增長的人口需要。

Some 10,000 children were abandoned in China every year, said Wang Zhenyao, president of the China Welfare Research Institute at Beijing Normal University. Media reports say many of these are girls and disabled children.

北京師範大學中國公益研究院院長王振耀稱，在中國，每年大約有一萬個孩子遭到遺棄。媒體報道稱，當中許多都是女孩和殘疾兒童。

Of 280 posts on "A Home Where Dreams Come True" from July to September 2012, Reuters found that people were giving away 98 baby girls and 61 boys. The others did not indicate a gender.

在“圓夢之家”2012年7月到9月的280個帖子中，路透社發現，98個女嬰和61個男嬰遭到拋棄，其他的並沒有指明性別。

Some of the parents using the website told Reuters their pregnancies were the result of extra-marital relationships, while others were in a similar position to Lu Libing and his wife.

一些使用該網站的父母對路透社說道，他們因爲婚外戀導致懷孕。而其他父母的處境則與陸禮冰及其妻子相類似。

Lu had initially short-listed three people to adopt his unborn child but said he was leaning towards a housewife in her late 30s. The woman offered to let the child meet his or her birth parents and siblings when the child turns 18, but Lu wasn't sure that was a good idea.

陸最初有三個收養人選，但是他更傾向於其中一個將近40歲的家庭主婦。她主動提出當孩子滿18週歲時就讓他和親生父母見面，但是陸並不確定這是不是個好主意。

"The child will hate us," he said. "Just think, if he's in his teens and he suddenly finds out that his biological parents are not his current father and mother, how would he feel? I think it would be a huge blow."

他說：“孩子會恨我們的，試想看看，如果孩子在十幾歲的時候突然發現自己不是父母親生的，他會有什麼樣的感受？我想這可能會是個巨大的打擊。”