Photo:Xinhua

TheMK sports proposal to further improve the mechanism for combating the crime of trafficking women and children will be submitted at the Third Session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), including a suggestion that the crime of trafficking women and children should carry penalties for both buyers and sellers, said Li Ziwei, an NPC deputy and teacher at Liaoyang Special Education School in Liaoyang City, Northeast China's Liaoning Province.

"Trafficking women and children seriously violates human rights and dignity, and undermines family integrity and social stability," Li told the Global Times on Monday. She suggested abolishing Article 262 of the Criminal Law, which deals with crimes including child abduction, and integrating such crime into the category of trafficking women and children.

Li proposed adding new criminal offenses such as organizing illegal adoption and forging parent-child relationship certificates, including raising the sentencing standards for the crime of purchasing trafficked woman and child, and ensuring equal punishment for both buying and selling, thus effectively protecting the legitimate rights and interests of women and children.

Li also told the Global Times that her proposal this year would focus on removing the statute of limitations on trafficking crimes, including suggesting the amendment of Article 87 of the Criminal Law to list trafficking woman and child as a crime that should be submitted to the Supreme People's Procuratorate for examination and approval. For historical cases that have exceeded the prosecution time limit, she proposed that investigations be reopened when key evidence can be obtained through new technologies such as DNA comparison. She also proposed establishing a digital anti-trafficking historical archive project to permanently preserve case materials.

Li also proposed the creation of a full-chain governance system encompassing prevention, punishment, relief, and deterrence, which includes establishing a special working group to complete the draft for legal revisions and supporting system designs by 2025. Additionally, she suggested creating special funds to expand the DNA database, upgrade the household registration system, and provide training for grassroots law enforcement officers. Furthermore, she advocated for the creation of a national anti-trafficking information platform to regularly publish typical cases and progress updates, thereby enhancing social supervision.

Another suggestion, according to Li, is to establish a unified blood sample screening system for individuals with abnormal household registration records. She proposed that the Ministry of Public Security take the lead in initiating mandatory DNA sample collection from individuals with irregular registration status, including individuals with unclear origins, inconsistent household registration information, or unregistered biological parents of children born out of wedlock.

The collected data should be linked in real time to the national anti-trafficking DNA database and be cross-matched using biometric recognition technology, she added.

She also suggested formulating detailed DNA data collection management regulations, to specify privacy protection measures, and establishing a mechanism to recheck abnormal data to avoid mistakenly penalizing families that legally adopted child.

In addition, she stressed the need for a system to cancel the illegal household registration of trafficked persons, including the revision of household registration regulations to add a clause. If the household registration is found to be obtained through trafficking, public security authorities should cancel it proactively as part of their duties. 

She also proposed developing an intelligent matching module between the national household registration system and the anti-trafficking database to enable automatic alerts for suspected illegal household registrations, prompt manual reviews, and enable bulk cancellations. Additionally, she suggested establishing a dispute resolution channel for the cancellation of household registrations to ensure legal protection and recourse.