The defendants at the Nghe An Province court on February 21, 2020.
Photo acquired by VnExpress. 

A Nghe An Province court sent three people to jail on Friday for trafficking pregnant women to China to sell their babies. 

Moong Thi Ba, 53, and Xeo Thi Tien, 38, received 18 months each for trafficking and Moong Thi Ly, 37, got 12 months for illegally getting people over the border.

The three belong to the province’s Ky Son District, central Vietnam.

According to the indictment, in March 2018 Ba’s daughter, Moong Thi Oanh, 33, returned to Vietnam after living in China for a while and told her mother to find a pregnant woman to sell her baby for VND60 million ($2,600).

Ba managed to convince a pregnant woman in Ky Son and took her to China. Two months later, when the woman gave birth to a baby, Oanh sold it to a family for VND50 million ($2,200).

Oanh brought the woman back to Vietnam but only gave her VND4 million ($170).

In August 2018 Tien and Ly contacted Oanh and took two pregnant women to China. One of them reportedly died in an accident in China, and the other was injured.

Tien, Ly, Oanh, and Ba were arrested in 2019, but Oanh was released due to her pregnancy and later fled.

In 2018 Nghe An Province recorded more than 25 of pregnant women from Ky Son crossing the border during their last months of pregnancy.

They sold their newborns, getting VND40-50 million ($1,700-$2,200) for a boy and VND70-80 million ($3,000-$3,500) for a girl.