Couple with seven daughters spend £10,000 buying a son

A Chinese couple with seven daughters have allegedly spent more than 90,000 yuan (£10,345) buying a son from strangers in order to carry on their family name.

The couple, named Mr and Mrs Chen by media, have been arrested and charged by the authority of Fengshun County in China’s Guangdong Province.
According to a local report, the baby boy, just over a month old, had been abducted and sold to the couple, but Mr and Mrs Chen told the court that they had not been aware of the fact. The incident was revealed by a recent report from a programmed called ‘Mingsheng 820’ aired on the Meizhou Broadcasting and Television Station.
Mr and Mrs Chen had been married for ‘many years’ and were desperate to have a son because of their ‘traditional mind-set’, said the report.
They had been trying to have a baby boy. However, all of the seven children they have are girls and they are aged between two and 18, Mr Chen told a reporter from Meizhou TV. Therefore, the couple decided to buy a son.