Former title: Guo Xinzhen's adoptive parents and sister bought a house and a car for him. The kindness of upbringing cannot offset his guilt
Article|
Du Hu
Guo Gangtang, Liaocheng, Shandong, has been searching for a son for 24 years. Under the final appraisal of the "reunion" plan of the Ministry of Public Security, he recently met his son Guo Xinzhen, who was abducted and trafficked to Linzhou, Henan, to make an appointment with his parents. Guo Xinzhen chose to stay with his adoptive parents at ordinary times and walk around his parents in winter and summer vacations. On July 14, a media visited Guo Xinzhen's adoptive parents in the village. The adoptive mother refused to be interviewed by the reporter by phone. His family told the reporter through acquaintances that they did not want their life to be disturbed.
In addition, there are media reports that Guo Xinzhen's adoptive parents have always loved him, and his two sisters have also taken good care of him and helped him buy a house and a car with their savings. These reports on the warmth of adoptive parents' families have also caused some controversy on the Internet. Some people think that this "emotion card" will blur the responsibilities of adoptive parents, magnify the benefits of parenting based on trafficking, and to some extent, it is a defense for the behavior of buying children. How to define the responsibilities of adoptive parents in trafficking is a long-standing problem.
Guo Xinzhen's adoptive parents were cold to the outside world and refused the media with an attitude of avoiding it. It was easy to understand that buying Guo Xinzhen from human traffickers was not a glorious thing, but a criminal act in depth, so cold treatment was the best choice. In many similar abductions, the adoptive parents try their best to keep a low profile, which is in contrast to Guo Gangtang's own parents' high-profile experience of finding children. The complex mentality is worth discussing.
After a vigorous search for his son and his parents, Guo Xinzhen was faced with the problem of choosing between his parents and foster parents, and finally he chose to stay with foster parents at ordinary times. This is understandable. After all, I grew up in Linzhou, worked in the local area, and my interpersonal relationship and real life were in the local area. It is impossible to uproot myself to Liaocheng and start again. However, it is still worth discussing the crime and punishment of adoptive parents.
After the official announcement of Guo Xinzhen's decision to stay with foster parents, people raised the question: should foster parents be held criminally responsible for buying children from traffickers? One clear answer is that buying abducted women and children is a criminal act and is listed in the Criminal Law. After the revision of the Criminal Law in 2015, the traffickers will be prosecuted and the buyers will also be sentenced. There is no doubt that foster parents are guilty.
However, to investigate the criminal responsibility of Guo Xinzhen's foster parents, we face the problem of exceeding the effective prosecution period. The limitation of prosecution for criminal offences under five years (sentencing) generally does not exceed five years, for criminal offences under ten years generally does not exceed ten years, and for death penalty cases it does not exceed twenty years at most. Guo Xinzhen has been bought for 24 years, which is too long to investigate. In practice, it is seldom done, and the target is mostly human traffickers. However, there are also views that buying abducted and trafficked children is a continuing crime, and the prosecution period should start from the day when the abducted and trafficked children leave their foster parents' families.
For example, the tragedy of Guo Gangtang and Guo Xinzhen's father and son's separation from each other for 24 years is hateful, but it can also be attributed to adoptive parents who "no business, no harm". But once the abducted child is found and grown up, the parents are immediately faced with a choice: if they blame the adoptive parents, it may hurt the child's heart and lead to the second loss of their own flesh and blood, so "walking around like relatives" is almost a practical choice.
Guo Gangtang chose Guo Xinzhen's adoptive parents in this way, as did Shen Junliang, who had been separated from his abducted son for 15 years. "When looking for a child, I thought that the adoptive parents must also go to prison after finding it. But when the child found it, there were concerns again." "When we saw the child, the child asked whether we could not hold the adoptive parents accountable, and we would certainly not refuse." Shen Junliang's inner suffering highlights the complexity of interrogating foster parents.
The existence of adoptive parents is a part of the criminal network of traffickers, which is the legal premise of criminalizing both adoptive parents and traffickers. But in reality, the situation is more complicated. If there is no possibility for adoptive parents to buy, will trafficked children be abused or even killed by traffickers? It is not ruled out that adoptive parents think that when they buy a child like Guo Xinzhen, it is to save the child, not to entrap him.
The story of Guo Gangtang's search for a child once again exposed the responsibilities of adoptive parents - moral and legal -. As the parties to the birth and rearing events, Guo Gangtang and Guo Xinzhen were afraid and could only make vague statements, which was completely understandable. However, as a law enforcement department, it should take this successful act of finding children to make a frank statement, for example: foster parents constitute a crime, but after the prosecution period, it does not mean that they are legally and morally innocent.
Just as the grace of procreation cannot cover up the obligations of parents, foster parents have no right to wash away their guilt by nurturing. According to the case reported by the surging news on July 15, Ling Dong, 25, was abducted from Zhejiang to Liuzhou when he was 4 years old. In the process of searching for his life experience and truth, he was strongly opposed by his adoptive parents. The adoptive mother threatened him with death by drinking pesticides, so he was not allowed to look for his relatives. It can be seen that without the reference frame of law, some adoptive parents can hardly return to normal thinking.
The kindness of upbringing cannot offset the crime and punishment of adoptive parents. From the perspective of law enforcement by public authorities, the responsibilities of adoptive parents can be continuously disclosed from the perspective of law popularization, even if the penalty cannot be investigated. The party concerned or the public may be trapped in the gray area of love and law, but the law enforcement department should unequivocally express their views on the crime and punishment of adoptive parents.
In short, the Ministry of Public Security has created a good atmosphere for Guo Gangtang and Guo Xinzhen to identify their parents, and the absence of criminal responsibility and moral responsibility of foster parents should also be clearly, explicitly and unambiguously emphasized and reaffirmed. It is one thing for adoptive parents to feel guilty about themselves. A complete social evaluation should not be erased. It should not be ignored because of the dilemma between individuals and families. The media should not ignore it just to tell the story of reunion. The law enforcement agencies should not be exempted because the prosecution period has passed.
