Zhang Jianbin, the adoptive father, had argued that Cui Jinping told him that the boy’s father had lost money gambling and wanted to sell the child, so he paid more than 20,000 yuan to buy it, and he did not know that the child was abducted. But the court did not adopt this opinion.
In a village 60 kilometers from home, Liu Liqin recovered his son Liu Xuan, who had been lost for 10 years.
On April 11, 2010, 2-year-old Liu Xuan was taken while playing near Xiaojing Yu village in Taiyuan, Shanxi. In January this year, the public security authorities, according to clues, in the village of Anding, Jiaocheng County, Lvliang City, Shanxi will be rescued Liu Xuan.
From Xiaojing Yu village to Anding village, but an hour’s drive. But the previous 10 years, Liu Liqin in order to find his son, almost all over the country, the media has reported many times, giving him the name of Shanxi child-seeking brother.
Liu Xuan’s adoptive father Zhang Jianbin, adoptive mother Cui Mei’s brother Cui Jinping was controlled by the police, October 12, the court made a verdict, found Zhang Jianbin guilty of buying trafficked children, sentenced to two years in prison; Cui Jinping guilty of child trafficking, sentenced to ten years in prison.
According to informed sources, one of the controversies in the case was whether Zhang Jianbin knew the child was an abducted child at the time of the purchase.
Zhang Jianbin had argued that when Cui Jinping told him that the boy’s father had lost money gambling and wanted to sell the child, he paid more than 20,000 yuan to buy it, and he did not know that the child was abducted. However, the court did not adopt this opinion.
Zhang Zhiwei, director of the Center for International Cooperation and Protection against Human Trafficking at China University of Political Science and Law, said the case was the first he was aware of in which the penalty for the buying party reached two years. He believes that for such a case of high social concern, the judiciary will probably punish it severely, demonstrating the determination of justice.
After the case was finalized, Liu Liqin did not mention the sentencing of his adoptive father with Liu Xuan. Mentioning them reminds me of the painful experiences I’ve had over the years. It’s all in the past, I just hope the child lives well at home.
Lost and Bought
On the bedside of Liu Liqin’s bedroom, there is still a family photo from ten years ago. In the photo, 2-year-old Liu Xuan was held in his mother’s arms, facing the camera, with a round face and the same long, thin eyebrows as his parents.
This is the last photo of Liu Xuan with his family before he was lost.
In 2010, Liu Liqin’s family of four was renting a villager’s house in Xiaojing Yu Village in Taiyuan City. At lunchtime on April 11 that year, his wife was making lunch at home, while 2-year-old Liu Xuan and his 5-year-old sister were playing at the door. When it was time to eat, his wife found that Liu Xuan was missing.
Liu Liqin is a renovation worker who just opened a small company in Taiyuan City. After learning that the child was lost, he put down his work, along the streets and alleys, the bus station train station to find a few days, but still no news.
The only clue is that the home near the hotel door monitoring camera, Liu Xuan was about one meter tall man carried away. Liu Liqin reported to the police, but because the identity of the man could not be verified, the trail was interrupted.
60 kilometers from Xiaojianyu Village, Lvliang City, Jiaocheng County, Anding Village. Zhang Jianbin Cui Mei couple since 2002 after marriage, moved to live here, the two have been no children.
Because they moved from outside the village, Zhang Jianbin has few friends in the village. The impression that people in the village have of him is that of a simple decorator. Neighbors still remember that the old man next door needs help when his home is broken, and Zhang Jianbin will go to the old man’s home to repair it for free.
The day Liu Liqin lost his son, Cui Mei’s second brother, Cui Jinping, brought a boy with him to Zhang Jianbin’s home.
According to Cui Mei recalled, the second brother told them that the boy’s father lost money gambling, to sell the child, the price of 20,000 yuan. Because the family did not have savings, Zhang Jianbin and relatives borrowed money to buy the child.
Before that, Cui Mei has had several miscarriages. Cui Mei said, at that time, the doctor could not determine the cause of the disease, only to inform her that she is not unable to have children, are said to adopt a child and then have a greater chance of success, Cui Jinping said to adopt a child first, her husband also agreed.
But they did not go through the normal adoption process. Cui Mei said that it was easier to get an account in rural areas, the phenomenon of child adoption is also more common, the couple on the relationship between the biological parents, the boy in the old family on the account.
Zhang Jianbin named the boy Lele, hoping that the child can grow up happily.
Two fathers of 10 years
For this bought son, Cui Mei said, Zhang Jianbin is very loving.
Because he didn’t know Lele’s birth date, Zhang set the child’s birthday on June 1, a very auspicious day in the eyes of the locals. Whenever Lele’s birthday, they would buy a small cream cake for the child.
When Lele was small, we were afraid he wouldn’t grow tall enough, so we bought him calcium tablets, and then his teeth became especially good. Cui Mei recalls that Lele was well behaved as a child, but after he started going to school, he followed the other children and fought with them, and his studies became worse and worse.
Cui Mei remembers that Zhang Jianbin also beat him for this reason. But even so, the child’s relationship with her husband is closer than with herself. He used to be afraid to go to the toilet in the courtyard at night, every time my husband had to wait at the toilet door. When he went to bed at night, he also had to hug my husband to sleep.
In the sixth year of Lele’s stay with Zhang Jianbin, Cui Mei became pregnant again and successfully gave birth to a girl. Cui Mei said that although she had her own daughter, her husband did not treat Lele badly. The milk powder we gave Lele at the time was hundreds of dollars, but the milk powder we bought for our daughter was a few dozen dollars.
Two years ago, someone from the village came to sell a flat-panel learning machine at a price of 800 yuan. Cui Mei mentioned that the family income was not much, but Lele wanted this learning machine, and promised to learn well in the future, and finally Zhang Jianbin bought it for him with Alipay.
In the view of outsiders, Zhang Jianbin’s family is poor, but a son and a daughter is considered a happy family.
On the other hand, Taiyuan City, Wanblin District, after the loss of his son, Liu Liqin moved to a small community near the village of Xiaojing Yu. Liu Liqin said that his son was lost in this area, he did not dare to leave here, only hoping to meet Liu Xuan in the neighborhood one day.
He caught a very heavy addiction to smoking, every day in the middle of the night to finish smoking, in order to sleep.
There is no clear single photo of the child in the family. Liu Liqin cut out the son’s part of the family photo, printed it as a single photo, stuck it on an old farm truck, and drove around looking for it. On the way to meet other families looking for their sons, we raised money to buy a gold cup car, in the search for children at the same time to promote the knowledge of abduction.
As long as someone provides a clue, Liu Liqin will go to the local verification. Over the past 10 years, he has traveled almost all over the country and used up his family’s savings, so he can only work in between child searches and continue to look for children in between jobs.
In the process of searching for his son, Liu Liqin and his companions were once trapped on the road due to heavy snow.
Liu Liqin remembered that it was 2016, the snow covered the whole village, once the car started to skid in place. The only thing left on the car is a packet of instant noodles, no hot water, two men broke the dry pastry into the food, in the back of the carriage wrapped in a coat curled up to sleep.
He also met a kind-hearted steward on the green train, who, after learning Liu Liqin’s story, sent him a free box lunch and put up a poster of his son’s search at the steward’s office in the entire train.
His mother passed away after getting sick several times during Liu Liqin’s son search, and he had no time to take care of his family affairs at home. When talking about his family, Liu Liqin is full of apologies for his son and husband in both capacities.
But he feels that he has done everything a father can do.
The child is right under his nose
The two families were transformed in early 2020.
In the process of searching for his son, Liu Liqin learned how to live-stream on Racer and released his son’s information through live-streaming on the platform. at the end of 2019, someone provided a clue to Liu Liqin through the platform, asking him to go to Anding Village in Jiaocheng County, Lvliang City to see that there was a child in the village who looked very much like Liu Xuan.
Because there have been so many experiences of being cheated over the years, Liu Liqin has not been to the local verification.
In December, the good Samaritan came back to my live room and blamed me for not looking, acting very angry. Liu Liqin said that after that he and his brother went to Anding Village several times and secretly took pictures of the child.
After getting the photos, Liu Liqin compared the photos of Liu Xuan when he was one year old with the photos of the child in Anding Village through the portrait matching system of the China Children’s Anti-Lost Platform (a private charity organization), and a similarity score of 67.43 appeared, suggesting a DNA test.
Liu Liqin’s brother went to Anding Village again.
He thought of a way to give the boy a chewing gum and wanted to use the saliva on the gum to do the DNA test. Because the boy refused to spit out the gum, he glued the gum to each other’s hair and took the opportunity to pull off a hair.
Through this hair, Liu Liqin did a paternity test. January 1 this year, the identification results show that the boy and Liu Liqin’s wife Zhang Jingping’s probability of paternity is 99.999%, supporting the existence of paternity between him and Zhang Jingping.
On January 2, according to the clues provided by Liu Liqin, the public security authorities went to the village of Anding to rescue Liu Xuan. Liu Liqin said he had run through half of China in ten years, but could not have imagined that the child was under his nose.
The day after Liu Xuan was rescued, 40-year-old Zhang Jianbin was taken into criminal detention by the public security authorities.
Cui Mei said, over the years, they never thought the boy’s family would come to the door again. I thought, the child sold are sold, how will come back.
Nowadays, Zhang Jianbin’s home still has the child’s toys, scooters, guitars, roller skates, a learning machine. Ten years of father and son a, Zhang Jianbin finally ended up an empty.
After her husband was arrested, Cui Mei left the original rented house, took her daughter to live in her sister’s house, relying on the snack bar to make ends meet. Cui Mei said she only felt remorse, should not have adopted the child in this way, so that the child’s biological parents looking for so many years.
Whether knowing that the child was a trafficked child
On January 4, 2020, Cui Mei’s second brother, Cui Jinping, surrendered to the police. Cui Jinping is 6 years younger than Zhang Jianbin, is illiterate, he and Liu Xuan’s biological father Liu Liqin acquaintance, the two are hometown relationship.
In April this year, the People’s Procuratorate of Wanblin District, Taiyuan City, to Cui Jinping suspected of child trafficking, Zhang Jianbin suspected of buying bought children, to the People’s Court of Wanblin District, Taiyuan City, public prosecution.
The verdict shows that, according to Cui Jinping’s confession, at 11:00 on the day of the murder, he was preparing to eat at a restaurant on the street in Xiaojing Yu, when he saw the boy from Liu Liqin’s house playing on the roadside. I teased him, the child followed me, walked not two steps I picked up the child and walked a few hundred meters to the location of the van, the child into the passenger seat of the van, and drove to his sister’s house.
Cui Jinping said, driving road, he called Cui Mei, asked her to have a child or not, the sister said yes. More than an hour later, he arrived at his sister’s home, lying to them that the adoption of a child, people want 20,000 yuan compensation. After handing over the child to his sister, Zhang Jianbin gave him 20,000 yuan in cash.
About the source of this child, Zhang Jianbin’s confession and Cui Mei’s statement consistent.
Zhang Jianbin mentioned in his confession, when Cui Jinping said that the boy’s father lost money gambling, to sell the child, the price is more than 20,000 yuan. At that time, the rural areas to buy a boy is 30,000 yuan, the girl is 20,000 yuan. At that time, he did not have enough money on hand, he went to a relative’s house to borrow money, and handed the money to Cui Jinping.
Zhang Jianbin insisted that he did not know that the child was abducted.
According to informed sources, an important point of contention during the trial of the case is whether Zhang Jianbin knew the child was an abducted child when he bought it.
Zhang Jianbin’s defense believes that the case objectively although there is the act of buying trafficked children, but there is not enough evidence to prove that Cui Jinping informed Zhang Jianbin that the child was trafficked, and more than a decade ago in rural areas to adopt children is also common.
Liu Liqin told Xinjing News that he did not attend the trial. In his opinion, the child’s adoptive parents are also very poor, but the distance between the two families is only 60 kilometers, is also considered a hometown, looking for children this 10 years, the media has also reported many times, Lvliang who does not know that he is looking for his lost son, the adoptive parents side is not likely to know.
The adoptive father was sentenced to two years in prison
On October 12 this year, the People’s Court of Wanbai District, Taiyuan City, made a verdict on the case.
The verdict shows that Zhang Jianbin’s defense proposed that, combined with the special situation of Zhang Jianbin married for many years without children and its special relationship with Cui Jinping, Zhang Jianbin guilty of lesser intent, or no intent, should be less severe punishment; he did not prevent the public security organs to rescue the child, in the purchase of the child for more than a decade did not abuse the child, he is also a victim.
His defense also argued that Zhang Jianbin constituted the crime of buying trafficked children, the act occurred in 2010, should be applied in 2010, Article 241 of the Criminal Law, the sentence is less than three years of fixed-term imprisonment, the bought child did not abuse, do not hinder the rescue, can not be investigated for criminal responsibility.
The court held that Zhang Jianbin knew that the children were trafficked, but still bought them, his behavior has constituted the crime of buying trafficked children, and the prosecution was guilty of the charge. On Zhang Jianbin proposed that he did not know that the child was abducted defense, and his defense proposed Zhang Jianbin did not know the fact that Cui Moping child trafficking defense, and the facts identified in the trial, is not accepted.
In addition, Zhang Jianbin in April 2010 to buy trafficked children, the behavior continued until January 2020 public security organs to buy children rescue, the current legal provisions should be applied; Zhang Jianbin there are mitigating circumstances, he did not mistreat the bought children, do not hinder their rescue, can be a lighter punishment.
For Cui Mouping’s behavior involved in the case, the court held that he took deception and lure means to young children for the purpose of selling them out of guardianship, his behavior has constituted the crime of child trafficking; on the defense of Cui Jinping as a first-time offender and no previous convictions, the defense opinion is accepted.
The verdict showed that Cui Muping was sentenced to ten years in prison and a fine of 30,000 yuan for the crime of child abduction and trafficking. Zhang Jianbin was sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of 10,000 yuan for the crime of buying trafficked children. After the verdict, the defendant and his family did not file an appeal.
A search by Xinjing News found that a criminal ruling issued by the court on Oct. 23 after the verdict showed that Zhang Jianbin’s fine was removed. According to informed sources, the amendment was due to the fact that there is no provision for concurrent fines in the penalties for the crime of buying trafficked women and children.
The Xinjing News reporter repeatedly asked the People’s Court of Wanbailin District, Taiyuan City on this matter, and as of press time, had not received a reply
Buyer’s criminalization is actually a helpless choice
Zhang Zhiwei, director of the Center for International Cooperation and Protection against Human Trafficking at China University of Political Science and Law, said the case was the first he was aware of in which the penalty for the buying party reached two years.
He believes that the case, in which the biological father has been searching for his son for ten years, has been reported by many media in society and has a large social impact. For such a case with a high social concern, the judicial authorities may punish it severely to show this judicial determination.
Liu Ling, deputy director of the Criminal Procedure Law Committee of the Beijing Lawyers Association, said that objectively, Zhang Jianbin had bought the child, paid 20,000 yuan as the price, and bought the child back as a commodity to raise, which is very typical of the act of buying children.
In 2015, Amendment IX to the Criminal Law changed the term of imprisonment to less than three years, detention or control for buying a child who has been abducted and sold, and who does not abuse the child and does not obstruct the rescue of the child, to a lesser or mitigated punishment.
Liu Ling believes that Zhang Jianbin has the statutory mitigating circumstances, while taking into account the social hazards of Zhang Jianbin’s criminal behavior, the harm caused to the victim’s family and other factors, the court sentenced him to two years in prison, is appropriate.
Zhang Zhiwei has been promoting the amendment of the bill on the criminalization of buyers since he started his public service anti-trafficking activities 12 years ago. He believes that the criminalization of the buyer is actually a desperate choice, but that a strong buyer market is one of the main reasons for the endless number of child abduction cases.
Zhang Zhiwei introduced the “Criminal Amendment IX” after the introduction of the buyer to strengthen the legal responsibility of the buyer should bear. In the past, some of the behavior in the gray area, such as the so-called civil delivery, many times are not punished. Now, as long as the two sides have a relatively large amount of transactions, are uniformly recognized as trafficking or purchase of children, is a crime, are subject to punishment.
Before 2015, the buyer was rarely held criminally responsible, and even if he was, most were treated with probation. After the criminalization of the buyer in 2015, the phenomenon has greatly improved, and it is now more common for the buyer to be sentenced to a real sentence.
Zhang also mentioned that in such cases, the buyer is usually less dangerous, and more people are sentenced to probation, some of them have a good attitude of confession and repentance, no previous record, and the victim also gives understanding, so the law will also be lighter punishment.
Zhang Zhiwei believes that the ultimate goal of the revision of the Criminal Law is not to punish, but to make the public aware from the legal level that such behavior is a crime, so as to reduce the occurrence of trafficking cases from the root. Whether it is detention or sentencing, it will make the public aware that this is a crime and is prohibited by national law.
After the case ended, Liu Liqin did not mention the sentencing of his adoptive father with his son, Liu Liqin said, mentioning them reminds me of the 10 years of experience. It’s all in the past, I just hope the child can live well at home.
By mid-December, Liu Xuan had been living in his new home for nearly a year.
Liu Liqin went through the school transfer procedure for her son, and Liu Xuan’s page in the family register has been kept for him; in order to improve the child’s academic performance, his mother also enrolled Liu Xuan in weekend tuition classes.
When asked whether Liu Liqin is a good father in Liu Xuan’s heart. Liu Xuan replied, quite good; handed to other dads may not find me like he did.
Nowadays, Liu Liqin has opened a child-finding studio to help other families find their trafficked or lost family members, and often needs to leave Taiyuan to go to other cities. Liu Xuan said, every time his father goes out, he will wait at home for Liu Liqin to come back, I know, he went out to look for other children.
(Liu Xuan, Zhang Jingping and Cui Mei are all pseudonyms in this article)
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