A court in Vietnam has sentenced nine people to up to twenty years in jail for their part in smuggling babies abroad for adoption.

Nearly two hundred babies were sold for two thousand dollars each to couples from Europe and North America, by a gang comprising of middle-class professionals including a doctor, an orphanage worker and a population registrar in the southern province of An Giang. The BBC South-East Asia correspondent says that the trial is the first of its kind in Vietnam, and comes at a time when poverty and mounting social problems in the country make it easier than ever for unscrupulous brokers to persuade poor parents to part with their offspring.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service