11 jailed in China for human trafficking

Eleven people were given jail terms in south China's Guangxi Zhuang region on Thursday for kidnapping and trafficking Vietnamese women.

The Guangxi Higher People's Court upheld the verdicts of the first trial, sentencing Xie Zongliang to life imprisonment, Deng Liwei to a jail term of 14 years, and nine others to between two and 13 years behind bars, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The court heard that Xie and Deng took hotel rooms with ID cards that other people lost, entrapping the Vietnamese women by pretending to ask for sexual services. Once the women were in the hotel rooms, other defendants, dressed up as police officers, bound them, took them by rented cars to the neighbouring Guangdong province and sold them.

Between November 2012 and March 2013, they trafficked 16 Vietnamese women.

The verdict of the first trial was given on September 24, 2014. The defendants appealed by claiming they were not aware that "introducing" the women to buyers was illegal. They stood the second trial on January 28.

The Vietnamese women have all been sent back to Vietnam.