Administrators from three hospitals in China are being investigated for the production and sale of illegal birth certificates that are being used to register kidnapped and surrogate-born children.

According to reports, the hospitals are creating false certificates under fake names and the children are being sold. Several suspects have been detained by police and the nation’s national health regulator has said nationwide checks will be carried out to put a stop to the fake documents.

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) has sent supervisors to the hospitals in three provinces that stand accused of the illegal activity to “urge and guide local governments to thoroughly investigate” the illegal forging, buying, and selling of birth certificates. The NHC will also inspect the management of birth certificates throughout the nation.

“There is indeed a market, where many childless families want children, and it will naturally facilitate and promote underground transactions,” said Yuan Bin, a professor at the College for Criminal Law Science of Beijing Normal University.

READ: Illegal surrogacy ring in Thailand caught trafficking babies to China

The scheme was originally the result of parents’ attempts to legitimize any additional children they gave birth to after their first due to China’s one-child policy. That policy forced abortions onto women and drove many to abandon their babies — mostly girls — at birth. China decided to allow certain families to have a second child beginning in 2016, but the fake birth certificate market remained active, likely fueled by would-be parents with fertility concerns who are not able to adopt a child through legal means. Birth parents and surrogates are willing to sell their babies to a middleman who upcharges the buyers.

Yuan said there has been an increase in recent years of biological parents selling their children for profit under the guise of placing them for adoption.

According to a 2015 report from Southern Metropolis Daily, of the 363 cases involving 380 abducted children in China from 2014 to 2015, 40% were sold by their biological parents. Xing Hongmei, vice president of the School of Law at China Women’s University, explained that some parents sold their children due to financial struggles and others sold their children rather than face single motherhood, but some became pregnant and sold their children simply to make money.

Those who buy the children do so because they can’t legally adopt. “If you turn the child into your own child [through a fake birth certificate], you can bypass the adoption system,” said Yuan.

In 2015, a man who sold his five children successively between 2012 and 2020 to human traffickers was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Each of the children was sold for a price equivalent to between $3,142 and $12,570. In all, he made 180,000 Chinese yuan or $28,275. He and his wife had the children with the intention of selling them. Five of the children — three daughters and a son — were sold to a middleman who received $565 for each transaction. The remaining child, a son, was sold to a woman who was in the maternity ward when the biological mother gave birth.

In 2021, another man was accused of selling his two-year-old son to a childless couple for $24,400 and then spending the money on a vacation.

Surrogacy is illegal in China; therefore, anyone who is acting as a surrogate mother does so secretly, making it impossible for them to register at hospitals or apply for a birth certificate using the child’s true identity.

“Staff at the hospitals are our acquaintances,” one baby broker said. “As long as they don’t mention the baby is a surrogate child, there should be no problem in applying for household registration.”

A six-month investigation from the NHC and the Supreme People’s Court began in June and should be coming to a close this month.

Administrators from three hospitals in China are being investigated for the production and sale of illegal birth certificates that are being used to register kidnapped and surrogate-born children.

According to reports, the hospitals are creating false certificates under fake names and the children are being sold. Several suspects have been detained by police and the nation’s national health regulator has said nationwide checks will be carried out to put a stop to the fake documents.

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) has sent supervisors to the hospitals in three provinces that stand accused of the illegal activity to “urge and guide local governments to thoroughly investigate” the illegal forging, buying, and selling of birth certificates. The NHC will also inspect the management of birth certificates throughout the nation.

“There is indeed a market, where many childless families want children, and it will naturally facilitate and promote underground transactions,” said Yuan Bin, a professor at the College for Criminal Law Science of Beijing Normal University.

READ: Illegal surrogacy ring in Thailand caught trafficking babies to China

The scheme was originally the result of parents’ attempts to legitimize any additional children they gave birth to after their first due to China’s one-child policy. That policy forced abortions onto women and drove many to abandon their babies — mostly girls — at birth. China decided to allow certain families to have a second child beginning in 2016, but the fake birth certificate market remained active, likely fueled by would-be parents with fertility concerns who are not able to adopt a child through legal means. Birth parents and surrogates are willing to sell their babies to a middleman who upcharges the buyers.

Yuan said there has been an increase in recent years of biological parents selling their children for profit under the guise of placing them for adoption.

According to a 2015 report from Southern Metropolis Daily, of the 363 cases involving 380 abducted children in China from 2014 to 2015, 40% were sold by their biological parents. Xing Hongmei, vice president of the School of Law at China Women’s University, explained that some parents sold their children due to financial struggles and others sold their children rather than face single motherhood, but some became pregnant and sold their children simply to make money.

Those who buy the children do so because they can’t legally adopt. “If you turn the child into your own child [through a fake birth certificate], you can bypass the adoption system,” said Yuan.

In 2015, a man who sold his five children successively between 2012 and 2020 to human traffickers was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Each of the children was sold for a price equivalent to between $3,142 and $12,570. In all, he made 180,000 Chinese yuan or $28,275. He and his wife had the children with the intention of selling them. Five of the children — three daughters and a son — were sold to a middleman who received $565 for each transaction. The remaining child, a son, was sold to a woman who was in the maternity ward when the biological mother gave birth.

In 2021, another man was accused of selling his two-year-old son to a childless couple for $24,400 and then spending the money on a vacation.

Surrogacy is illegal in China; therefore, anyone who is acting as a surrogate mother does so secretly, making it impossible for them to register at hospitals or apply for a birth certificate using the child’s true identity.

“Staff at the hospitals are our acquaintances,” one baby broker said. “As long as they don’t mention the baby is a surrogate child, there should be no problem in applying for household registration.”

A six-month investigation from the NHC and the Supreme People’s Court began in June and should be coming to a close this month.