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Police in China investigating case of 13-year-old child bride who had a baby after being sold for marriage to a 23-year-old man by her father

  • Girl had baby after first marriage but it was later revealed he is not the father, whose identity is unconfirmed
  • The girl’s father and an aunt arranged the marriages in exchange for cash payments

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A child bride in China was twice sold from the age of 13 onwards and ended up pregnant. Illustration: Tom Leung

Police in southeastern China are investigating a case involving a young girl who was married at the age of 13 and had a baby the next year.

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The girl, surnamed Zhang, is a resident of Ganyu District of Lianyungang, Jiangsu, and was born in April 2006, according to her identity card. In October, 2019, Zhang married a 23-year-old man in the same city. In May last year, she gave birth to a baby boy, news portal Thepaper reported.

The birth certificate of the baby showed its mother was aged 14 years old while his father was 23 years old, the report said. The document showed that the girl was over 40 weeks pregnant when her son was born.

At the end of last year the girl quarreled with her husband and left his family before returning to her father’s home.

Her husband, identified only by his surname Huang, found that she married again in February..

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He also discovered that he is not the biological father of the boy after a DNA test.

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