Chinese Police Arrest 608 People and Rescue 178 Abducted Children Aged 1 Month to 4 Years in 6 Month Sting-Most of Them are Boys

Our 20th posting this year on China and trafficking. Links to the other 19 at the end of this post.

“Police have rescued 178 abducted children following a six-month sting involving forces across 10 provinces and regions.

“All of the children have been placed safely in welfare institutes, and some sick ones are receiving treatment in hospital,” Chen Shiqu, head of the Ministry of Public Security’s anti-trafficking task force, told China Daily on Tuesday.

He said the youngsters are aged from one month to four years, adding that most are boys.

The operation, which was led by Deputy Minister of Public Security Zhang Xinfeng and involved more than 5,000 police officers, also led to the detention of 608 suspected child traffickers.

“We take a zero-tolerance attitude toward child trafficking, and we will continue to fight it with lightening strikes,” Chen said.

He explained that the breakthrough came in May this year, when police in Sichuan province uncovered an important lead while dealing with a traffic accident, leading them to Cai Lianchao, a suspected gang leader responsible for trafficking 26 children to Henan province.

In August, detectives in Fujian province uncovered another major trafficking operation allegedly headed by Chen Xiumei, who is said to have sold 11 abducted youngsters.

The ministry set up special investigation teams in September, and the suspects were seized in the unified operation on Nov 30.

Local authorities assigned female police officers to look after the rescued children before they were transferred to welfare institutes to await proper placement.

“The illegal buyers will not be allowed to continue raising them,” Chen said. “We will gradually eliminate the market demand to reduce child trafficking at its root.”

Since April 2009, he said, the ministry has taken many effective measures to help children recovered from abductors find their parents, such as DNA testing.

Zhang Baoyan, founder of Baby Come Home, an NGO website devoted to helping parents reunite with lost children, said news of the sting was “exhilarating”.

“Just imagine how many more families would suffer if such a large number of traffickers had not been caught,” she said, adding that she hopes the detentions will deter other criminals. “This is a clear signal that the police are giving priority to cracking down on the trafficking of children.”

Zhang also backed the decision to send the children directly to care homes, explaining that the key to curbing child trafficking lies in tackling the buyers. 


“We must send the signal to buyers that no matter how many years they keep the child, legally the child does not belong to them,” she added.

Since the founding of Baby Come Home – baobeihuijia.com – in 2007, Zhang said the overall situation has improved greatly, mainly due to the website’s enhanced cooperation with the Ministry of Public Security.

“We used to receive seven or eight reports of lost children every day, and very few of them had a happy ending,” she said.

“Now we have staff members dedicated to communicating with the authority, and we supply blood samples of parents looking for lost children for DNA tests.”

Children freed from clutches of crime gangs
[China Daily 12/7/11 by Zhang Yan and Xu Wei]

“Police arrested the suspects on Nov. 30, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement, calling the crackdown “one of the biggest victories for anti-trafficking”.

Police in the southwestern province of Sichuan had discovered in May that a group led by a man named Cai Lianchao sold 26 children to other regions, the ministry said.

It added that in another case, police in eastern Fujian had learned in August that children were sold to residents by a woman named Chen Xiumei and other suspects from a child trafficking gang.

Child trafficking is rampant in China, where population control policies have bolstered a traditional bias for male offspring, seen as the mainstay for elderly parents and heir to the family name, and have resulted in abortions, killings or abandonment of girls.

The imbalance has created criminal demand for abducted or bought baby boys, but also for baby girls destined to be future brides attracting rich dowries.

In May, the southern Chinese province of Hunan said it had begun investigating a report that officials had seized at least 16 babies born in violation of family planning rules, sent them to welfare centres and then sold them abroad for adoption.”

China arrests 608 people for child trafficking
[The Star 12/7/11 by Reuters]

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