A young couple in Shanghai are being prosecuted for trying to sell their infant daughter on the Internet for 50,000 yuan ($8,205), says an article in Guangzhou Daily. Excerpts:

In the old days there were people who sold their kids to landlords as it was difficult for them to raise one child because of their extreme poverty. However, this couple in Shanghai are not that poor and have the means to bring up the child. On the contrary, after cand high-end sports shoes online, they immediately spent the money they earned from selling their kid.

What makes it even more terrible is that they are not the only parents selling a child online. According to the criminals behind the trafficking of 49 babies in Yunnan province, there is a saying in some poverty-stricken areas in the province that it is more profitable to sell a child than it is to raise pigs.

Parents comparing the profits between selling a child and selling pigs is monstrous, and those who make the seemingly well-intended decision to "find a better-off family that guarantees their growth and happiness" show the decline of human ethics.

But if there was no demand, there would be no market. It is a crime to both sell and buy infants. Only by cutting the criminal methods of baby trafficking at the source can the "chain" be broken.

(China Daily 10/25/2013 page9)