HONG KONG, May 31 (UPI) -- Chinese kidnap gangs are targeting Hong Kong's well-fed and healthy children for sale in the mainland, a child-abuse watchdog reports.
Priscilla Lui, Hong Kong-based director of Against Child Abuse, warned that kidnappers can strike in minutes if children are left unattended. The gangs are bold enough to sell children on the street in large mainland cities, The Hong Kong Standard reported.
The problem is likely to increase as growing numbers of Hong Kong families are visiting and even moving to mainland cities.
A reporter for Sing Tao Daily, The Standard's Chinese-language sister newspaper, was offered children from three to five years of age for sale on a street in Guangzhou. Boys were priced at about 45,000 yuan ($5,400) and girls at 20,000 yuan ($2,400), the reporter said.
Kidnapping and selling women and children is punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment in the mainland, but repeat offenders are sometimes executed.
In January, police arrested 96 people for kidnapping and selling children in two southwestern provinces. Last November a kidnap gang was arrested, whose victims included the five-year-old son of a Hong Kong resident.
