China Thursday executed two men for abducting and trafficking 15 children as the country's top court said the crime was on the rise, state media reported.

The Supreme People's Court said Hu Minghua, 55, was executed for kidnapping nine children between April 1999 and October 2005, the Xinhua news agency reported. He had also been convicted of transporting heroin in the southwest province of Yunnan.

Five of the children, all boys aged between three and six, had been returned to their families while the rest were rescued by police but had not found their parents, Xinhua said, quoting from a court statement.

The other man put to death was Su Binde, 27, from central Henan province who was executed for abducting six children between September 2005 and July 2006. Five of the children had been found by police but one five-year-old boy was still missing.

Su was also convicted of robbery and theft and the kidnapping of a taxi driver in 2006, Xinhua said, adding that the court did not give any details on where the two executions were carried out.

Trafficking of women and children remains a problem in China with many sociologists blaming the nation's "one child" family planning policy for fuelling the crime.

Under the policy, aimed at controlling the world's largest population of more than 1.3 billion, people who live in urban areas are generally allowed one child, while rural families can have two if the first is a girl.

This has put a premium on baby boys, while baby girls are often sold off as couples try for a male heir.

- The crime of children trafficking is on the rise. Children trafficking gangs now have a clearer division of work and more children of migrant workers have been abducted - Supreme People's Court spokesman Wang Shaonan said, according to Xinhua.

Wang said a total of 1,714 criminals were punished for abducting and trafficking children in the first 10 months this year.

China launched a crackdown on child abduction in April, with 2,008 children rescued in more than 1,700 trafficking cases as of October 12, the Xinhua report said.