Two Vietnamese held for selling orphan boy
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Two women have been arrested for allegedly trafficking a child at an orphanage in a Hanoi pagoda famed for rescuing abandoned babies, Vietnamese state media said yesterday.
Nguyen Thi Thanh Trang, the 36-year-old manager of the orphanage in the capital’s Bo De pagoda, was taken into custody on Sunday pending police investigation into the trafficking of a year-old boy for US$1,700 (Bt54,000), Tuoi Tre newspaper said.
Another woman, Pham Thi Nguyet, 35, was also arrested while three others have been questioned over the same allegation, the report added without clarifying their roles.
The Bo De Pagoda in Hanoi is renowned for its orphanage where dozens of abandoned children are cared for, including the disabled – from teenagers with Down Syndrome to blind babies.
The boy, who was believed to have been left at the pagoda’s entrance at birth, disappeared suddenly “without reason”, the report said, adding complaints led to the police investigation.
Officers discovered that the boy was “in fact trafficked” in exchange for $1,700. The probe is ongoing to identify whether there were any other similar cases.
