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From The Sunday Times
September 23, 2007

Chinese bid to stop ‘kids for sale’ film

Richard Brooks

The Chinese embassy in London is trying to stop Channel 4 broadcasting a documentary about the trade in stolen children in China.

The embassy is considering seeking an injunction to try to prevent China’s Stolen Children being shown on October 8. It has also been in touch with Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, and is expected to write to Channel 4’s board.

The Chinese are angry that they are not being given an advance screening of the documentary, which claims that the trade in stolen children is widespread. C4 says it is not its policy to show such programmes in advance.

However, the programme makers have provided the embassy with a three-page letter detailing their evidence. Professor Kevin Bales, a consultant to the United Nations programme on people trafficking, says in the film that at least 70,000 young children a year are sold or stolen in China.

Zhao Shangsen, press counsellor to the embassy, wrote to the programme makers saying: “The programme is deeply flawed, ignorant and simplistic.” He denies any link between child trafficking and China’s one-child policy, pointing to trafficking in other countries which do not have state-imposed birth control.

Shangsen wrote that China has made progress in trying to end child trafficking, which was on a far smaller scale than the programme suggested. “There is no good in finger-pointing at China,” Shangsen wrote to C4.

The programme makers filmed undercover in China, speaking to parents who had had a child stolen or had sold a child, and to traffickers. More boys are taken than girls because they will grow up to earn more money. Most are taken for childless couples, although some are sold into prostitution.

Channel 4 has already conceded a right of reply at the end of the programme to the Chinese embassy.

China’s Stolen Children is produced by the same team that made The Dying Rooms and Return to the Dying Rooms in the mid1990s which showed that many second-born children were dumped in orphanages and left to die.

The programmes led to a diplomatic row between China and the Tory government. Since then, trade links between Britain and China have strengthened considerably.

With the Olympics in Beijing next year, China’s human rights and environmental record will be scrutinised in the West.

This shocking situation needs further highlighting if any real action is to be taken by the Chinese government. An e-petition has been started through the Downing Street website to push for our government to take up this issue. It only takes a minute to add your name and the more names there are, the more seriously our government will take it. Thanks. http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Chinachildren/

Dawn Connor-van der Horst, New Milton, UK

I know there are always two sides to every story but the fact remains as to what happened to the people in the documentary. Human trafficking should not on any account be going on. It is understandable that birth control is an important issue in a country with such a large population and thus the law being made for families to have only one child. To penalise a poor family if they don't comply with this rule is somewhat barbaric. Sometimes it happens that people even if they practise birth control can fall pregnant due to different reasons. I myself had been on the pill and due to having gastric flu I fell pregnant with twins, so it does happen through no fault of the mother. To get rid of little innocent children either by abortion or selling them is inhumane. Maybe if less money was spent on amassing weapons of destruction and more put into educating and improving the plight of the poor in China and the rest of the world by nations this despicable trade would discontinue.

Doreen E. Moss, Bangor, Co.Down

I'm glad the Chinese embassy is taking advantage of our open society to make known their objections to the programme. Let's hope this will encourage them to foster a bit of democracy back home. By the way the embassy officials quoted is Zhou at second reference, not Shangsen (surname comes first in Chinese).

Michael , London,

It is very difficult for media inside and outside China to report truthfully about what is going on in China. In my country Canada, the CBC is working with CCTV to promote the Olympics which astounds me because so many of their colleagues - journalists attempting to report the truth are languishing in China's gulags. Reporters Without Borders says China is the world's worse predator of free speech. Why would the CBC want to join force with them?
It seems that fame and greed has corrupted not only business people and politicians, but also our media as well. If you want to experience real pressure try doing a show on the mass organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners which has been proven and validated in the third party report of Canadian statesman David Kilgour and Internationally acclaimed Human Rights Lawyer David Matas. Media pays little attention to this, so the Davids travel globally trying themselves to raise awareness of what they call "a new form of evil on the planet".

Sophia Palfrey, Vancouver, Canada

The fact that the Chinese government is getting so upset about the media in the west exposing social injustice and incompetence or corruption on the part of the Chinese officials is good news and very encouraging. Senior figures in the Chinese government must realise that the Chinese people can not be proud of their country unless the cause of democracy is advanced in step with economic growth which China is no doubt leading the world! The political and economic reform in China cannot be completed until the principle of one man one vote is adopted and the most lethal cancer in Chinese society namely corruption is eradicated or kept under control.

Wing, Poole, UK

Freedom of speech crushed in China with horrendous human rights abuses in Tibet and across the country. They now attempt to limit freedom of the press and speech in the UK. Perhaps we should allow China to vet all future articles and documentary's just in case the truth is stumbled upon.

The Chinese currently (2005) have 68 offences in criminal law where the death sentence is applicable. Consider fear of Torture, lack of access to legal representation, closed trials.

The spotlight is shinning brightly on China, lets keep so.

Mark Taylor, Brighton, UK

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