If you cannot raise a child after birth, the only lawful path is civil-affairs registration: taking money to hand the child over may be sentenced as trafficking; leaving them without care is abandonment

There is a way out if you cannot raise the child, but the only lawful one is registering the adoption with civil affairs; the adoption relationship exists only from the day of registration. Privately giving the child to someone, especially for money, can turn “placement” into trafficking in children, with a starting sentence of 5 years or more. Leaving the child without care and refusing to support them, when circumstances are egregious, is abandonment, punishable by up to 5 years.

Cost

No money. Register the adoption at a civil affairs department at county level or above; you must submit materials and wait for review and an adoption assessment, so it takes some time end to end.

Benefit

Criminal Law Article 240: “Whoever traffics in women or children shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years but not more than ten years and shall also be fined.” With aggravating circumstances, fixed-term imprisonment of not less than ten years or life imprisonment, and a fine or confiscation of property. “If the circumstances are especially serious, the offender shall be sentenced to death and also to confiscation of property.” Article 17 of the Opinions on Lawfully Punishing Crimes of Trafficking in Women and Children explains how to distinguish selling one’s own child from folk placement. The test is “whether the actor has a purpose of illegal profit” — whether they meant to make money from it. Three situations can be found to be selling one’s own child and convicted as trafficking in women or children. First: “using childbirth as a means of illegal profit and selling the child right after birth.” Second: “knowing the other side has no purpose of raising the child, or giving no thought to whether they do, and ‘giving’ the child to another in order to take money.” Third: “taking a huge sum that clearly is not a ‘nutrition fee’ or ‘thanks fee’ and ‘giving’ the child to another.” Conversely, privately placing a child under genuine hardship without a profit motive, and taking only a small nutrition or thanks fee, is folk placement and is not convicted as trafficking. Next, Criminal Law Article 261. “Whoever refuses to fulfill the duty to support an elderly person, a young person, a sick person, or another person who cannot live independently, under egregious circumstances, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years, criminal detention, or public surveillance.” Civil Code Article 1094 provides that only three kinds of person may place a child for adoption: the guardian of an orphan, a child welfare institution, and birth parents who have special difficulty and cannot raise the child. Article 1105: “Adoption shall be registered with the civil affairs department of the people’s government at or above the county level. The adoption relationship is established as of the date of registration”

Notes

Whether to have a child is not discussed here. After the child is born, this order is the simplest. Step one: give birth in a hospital; prenatal care and inpatient delivery are in Section 27. The birth medical certificate is the premise for every later procedure. Step two: for placement, go straight to civil affairs at county level or above; do not go through a middleman. Once money changes hands, the nature can change. Within a year after birth, if thoughts of harming yourself or the child appear, treat it as an emergency. The list of signals that require immediate hospital care in pregnancy and after birth is in Section 27, item 7. The 42-day postpartum checkup is also a postpartum-depression screen; see Section 27, item 16. For suicidal thoughts call 12356; see Section 1, item 25. This item has no case attached: official typical cases of trafficking one’s own child were not checked case by case in this round, so only the statute and the opinion’s text are cited.

Sources · 3

1. 全国人大 (1997). 刑法（第二百四十、二百六十一条）. spp.gov.cn/spp/fl/201802/t20180206_364975.shtml
2. 最高人民法院、最高人民检察院、公安部、司法部 (2010). 关于依法惩治拐卖妇女儿童犯罪的意见（法发〔2010〕7 号，第 17 条）. 最高人民法院官网 court.gov.cn/fabu/xiangqing/977.html
3. 全国人大 (2020). 民法典（第一千零九十四、一千一百零五条）. 盐城市人民政府转载收养编全文 xxgk.yczf.gov.cn/xzf/ycmzj/fdzdgknr/fgwj_4199…