The suspended death sentence handed down to Zhang Shuxia, former deputy director of obstetrics at Fuping County Maternal and Child Healthcare Hospital in Shaanxi province, for selling seven babies once again highlights the problem of child trafficking.

Child trafficking is a global problem. Up to 4 million women and girls are bought and sold into marriage, prostitution and slavery every year. According to UNICEF, more than 1 million children, most of them girls, are forced into the sex trade every year.

Commercial sexual exploitation of children is increasing across the world. Instead of showing signs of abating, as we hope, child prostitution is growing. There are many reasons for this, including increasing trade across borders, rising poverty and unemployment, low social status of girls, lack of education (including sex education) of children and their parents, inadequate legislation, lack of or poor law enforcement, and the eroticization of children by the media, a phenomenon increasingly seen in industrialized countries.