A local court in Southwest China's Guizhou Province on Friday executed death sentence on Yu Huaying, who was convicted of abducting and trafficking 17 children in 10 years.
Between 1993 and 2003, Yu, in collaboration with others, traveled to various places, including Guizhou, Chongqing, and Yunnan, where she abducted a total of 17 children to gain illegal profits.
On October 25, 2024, the Guiyang Intermediate People's Court sentenced Yu to death for child abduction, deprived her of political rights for life, and confiscated all her personal property.
Yu appealed the verdict. After a second trial, the Guizhou Provincial High People's Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the original judgment. The case was then submitted to the Supreme People's Court for approval.
Following a review, the Supreme People's Court approved the death sentence in accordance with the law.
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The execution of Yu's death sentence quickly became a trending topic on China's social media. On the X-like platform Weibo, the topic gained over 35 million views by Friday noon.
"Delayed justice is still justice," one netizen commented on Weibo.
"Finally, may there be no more human traffickers in the world, and may all children have a happy home," another netizen wrote.
The execution of Yu reflects the fairness of the people's judiciary and upholds social justice and equality. It also reflects the effective deterrence of China's death penalty system against extremely heinous crimes, domestic news site thepaper.cn said.
Human trafficking, which treats children as "commodities," severely undermines social conscience and breaches the legal red line. It must be dealt with severely, it noted.
On Friday morning, Yang Niuhua, one of the victims in Yu's case, was on a live-streaming with her sister when she suddenly learned of Yu's execution, according to chinanews.com.
Yang Niuhua's sister responded in the live broadcast, saying, "This came too suddenly, and I'm a bit emotional. We've all been waiting for this day," reflecting on how Yu had harmed so many families.
Yang was one of the children trafficked by Yu Huaying. In 1995, when she was 5 years old, she was abducted by Yu Huaying from Guiyang, capital city of Guizhou, and trafficked to Handan in Hebei Province, the Chengdu-based Red Star News reported in December 2024. It wasn't until 2021 that she was able to find her home in Xiaotuoluo village of Guanzhai township in Zhijin county, Guizhou. Yang's case stirred a heated discussion online at that time.
The public security organs across China successfully solved over 550 current and cold cases of human trafficking in 2024, with a group of trafficking suspects apprehended and a batch of missing and abducted women and children rescued, including an individual missing for up to 30 years, helping to protect the rights and welfare of women and children, China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said on Tuesday.
