Banned gender test thrives in HK

Hong Kong: Shady middlemen are advertising on Chinese social media to smuggle blood samples of pregnant women to Hong Kong to skirt the mainland’s ban on gender testing, an AFP investigation found.The business thrives on an underground network that serves the demand for illicit sex-sel­ective abortion in mainland China – driven by family size limits and a cultural preference for sons.Chinese authorities vowed to crack down on the trade in 2015.But dozens of blood-smuggling agents openly advertise services online despite China’s proven ability to scrub digital content.

Gender testing – except on medical grounds – is outlawed in China, where sex-selective abortions have helped create a surplus of about 31.6 million men.