This article from BBC News is so bizarre it is almost comical. A group of book salesmen were handing out pamphlets on a lecture at a primary school in Zhejiang Province. Somehow, a rumor spread that these men were actually a child trafficking gang trying to kidnap the students. Angry parents mobbed the five salesmen and beat them, according to reports from the local police. Eventually the police broke up the mob and sent the salesmen to a local hospital, but one of the men was beaten so severely he died soon afterwards. 

Assuming this report is true – and reports emerging from local police in China should always be taken with a grain of salt – it highlights several underlying human rights issues. The first issue is media censorship and the likelihood of rumors leading to violence in China (remember the Guangdong toy factory?). Rumors are common worldwide, but in China they are particularly dangerous for two reasons: one, due to media censorship, people trust rumors more than they trust what they see in the media; and two, because local officials, particularly police, are so often corrupt, upon hearing a rumor people in China are likely to turn to vigilante justice, rather than calling the police.

Indeed, this takes us to the second issue this story raises: corruption, and the links between government corruption and human trafficking.  Human trafficking, and specifically the trafficking of children, is a huge problem in China. The indifference of local officials to parents of kidnapped children leads many parents to believe the local officials are part of the problem. Given the rampant corruption in China, this would not be surprising. And why is the trade of children in China so lucrative? Well that takes us to human rights issue number three: the one child policy. Most parents in China can only have one child. But the cultural preference for boys means that some parents are willing to pay large sums of money to ensure that one child is a boy. That’s why a young boy in China can be sold for over $6,000, a huge sum in China, but girls are generally sold for closer to $500. Of course, the one child policy has also led to a massive gender imbalance in China, so as the current generation reaches marrying age and simply can’t find enough women to marry, the trafficking of adult females, already a problem in China, is likely to increase.