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A30 world news
Diabierna 11 Maart 2022

Human trafficking case sparks government response in China

ter rescue and providing re-
Activists have welcomed the NPC delegates do not direct- sources for mental health and
response, though some ques- ly draft legislation, although physical recovery, she said.
tion whether the focus on their proposals are passed on
heavy criminal penalties is to the appropriate ministries. Among activists’ concerns is
the best approach to take. The body’s Standing Com- whether those rescued will
mittee, aided by legal experts, be able to register for public
“I personally think all of actually writes the laws. services such as health insur-
these proposals are positive, ance because they had been
and they are meaningful,” The chained woman’s plight given new names and house-
said Feng Yuan, co-founder ignited a public demand to hold registrations in the plac-
of Beijing Equality, a group ensure a crackdown on traf- es to which they had been
that focuses on gender-based ficking. According to Zhang’s trafficked.
violence. 2022 report, the number of
people charged annually with “I hope these points can also
“But I think they are miss- trafficking women and chil- attract attention,” Feng said.
ing some important angles,” dren declined from 14,458 in
(AP) — Sustained, pal- enforce” laws against abduc- Feng said, because the pro- 2000 to just 1,135 people last China’s Cabinet addressed
pable anger in China over tion and trafficking. posals she saw have been too year. However it’s unclear if some of those issues in an
the case of a mother of focused on the buyers’ crimi- the decline in the number April 2021 document, in-
eight found chained in- The woman found on the nal penalties. charged is due to less traffick- cluding verifying marriage
side a shed has prompted outskirts of the eastern city of ing or due to looser enforce- registrations and increasing
an unusually strong gov- Xuzhou had been trafficked Under current Chinese ment. anti-trafficking education in
ernment response to hu- multiple times and had eight criminal law, those who traf- remote areas. New measures
man trafficking at the children by the man who ul- fic women or children can A desire to quiet and divert seek to give these initiatives a
annual session of China’s timately purchased her. be sentenced to between five public anger while China was boost.
rubber-stamp legislature. and 10 years in prison, and hosting the Winter Olympics
State media reported that at even a death sentence. Pur- last month may have been a Trafficking is fed in part by
The issue even merited a least half a dozen proposed chasers can be sentenced to factor in the government’s a large gender imbalance re-
brief mention by China’s legal reforms on the issue no more than three years. response. sulting from China’s former
premier Li Keqiang in his an- were brought by members of one-child policy.
nual report on government the National People’s Con- Jiang’s proposal also included “They don’t want this case to
performance delivered Satur- gress and its consultative the prospect of a follow-up suck up all the air,” said Dali “The logic of constructing a
day. That marked part of a di- body, which are holding their mechanism after victims are Yang, a professor of political family as being the most im-
rect attempt by a government annual sessions this week in rescued from trafficking. science at the University of portant thing in a way over-
not often given to responding Beijing. Others called on local gov- Chicago. “So there’s clearly rides concern about where
to public pressure to address ernments to correctly iden- an interest in, ideally, resolv- someone came from,” said
the widespread outrage. A proposal from delegate Ji- tify trafficking victims who ing it in a way that it would Johanna Ransmeier, a pro-
ang Shengnan would raise may have been registered un- disappear.” fessor at the University of
Local governments have an- criminal penalties in traffick- der false names, create a na- Chicago who studied the his-
nounced crackdowns on the ing cases so that the buyer tionwide alert system for kid- Yang said proposals to ad- tory of human trafficking in
practice of trafficking vul- would face the same penal- napping and trafficking, and dress the issue appeared to be China.
nerable women in the vast ties as the seller, according increase criminal penalties. politically “within the realm
country, while the Public Se- to state newspaper Beijing of acceptability.” Ultimately, such underlying
curity Ministry is pursuing a Youth Daily. Authorities did not respond attitudes need to change for
nationwide anti-trafficking to a request to interview Feng, the women’s rights ac- a solution to be found, Rans-
campaign aimed at solving a “Appropriately increasing the NPC delegates, including tivist, urged the government meier said.
backlog of cases, to be carried penalty and increasing the Jiang. A similar request for to look at reform beyond
out by all levels. On Tues- criminal penalty for buying members of the advisory criminal penalties. More ur- “It’s distressing that this rem-
day, China’s top prosecutor, will play a certain deterrent body the Chinese People’s gent issues include verifying edy is purely about punish-
Zhang Jun, announced his effect,” Jiang was quoted as Political Consultative Con- a victim’s identity, helping ment, and not about social
department would “strictly saying by the paper. ference was declined. them live independently af- change,” she said.

Endurance: Explorer Shackleton’s ship found after a century

(AP) - Researchers have pedition Endurance22 an- The combination of deep, of breaking through 3-foot the ship was recorded to have
discovered the remark- nounced the discovery on dark waters — no sunlight (1-meter)-thick ice. sunk in 1915.
ably well-preserved wreck Wednesday. penetrates to 10,000 feet —
of polar explorer Ernest frigid temperatures and sea The team, which included The British explorer Shackle-
Shackleton’s ship, En- Images and video of the ice have frustrated past ef- more than 100 research- ton never achieved his ambi-
durance, in 10,000 feet of wreck show the three-mast- forts to find Endurance, but ers and crew members, de- tion to become the first per-
icy water, a century after ed wooden ship in pristine also explain why the wreck is ployed underwater drones son to cross Antarctica via the
it was swallowed up by condition, with gold-leaf in such good condition today. that combed the seafloor for South Pole. In fact, he never
Antarctic ice during what letters reading “Endurance” two weeks in the area where set foot on the continent.
proved to be one of the still affixed to the stern and The bottom of the Weddell
most heroic expeditions the ship’s lacquered wooden Sea is “a very inhospitable
in history. helm still standing upright, as environment for just about
if the captain may return to everything — especially
A team of marine archae- steer it at any time. the kind of bacteria, mites
ologists, engineers and other and wood-eating worms
scientists used an icebreaker The discovery is “a titantic that would otherwise enjoy
ship and underwater drones find” in “one of the world’s munching on a wooden ship-
to locate the wreck at the bot- most challenging environ- wreck,” said Schwankert.
tom of the Weddell Sea, near ments,” said maritime histo-
the Antarctica Peninsula. rian Steven Schwankert, who The expedition Endur-
was not involved in the expe- ance22 embarked from Cape
The Falklands Maritime dition. Town, South Africa, in early
Heritage Trust’s search ex- February in a ship capable