24,000 Abducted Chinese Women and Children Freed in 2011; 2000 of the Children Had Been Sold for Adoption

Only a few articles about the 24,000 abducted Chinese women and children mention that 2,000 were sold to adoption in 2011. This story published in Hong Kong 24,000 abducted women, kids free  [The Standard 3/12/12 by Agence France Presse] was also picked up by the Korea Herald. Other stories remove those key lines from the story.

“More than 24,000 abducted women and children, some sold for adoption or into prostitution as far away as Angola, were rescued by police nationwide last year.

But activists say the cases uncovered are just the tip of the iceberg.

Trafficking of women and children, a serious problem, is blamed in part on the mainland’s strict “one-child” policy that has put a premium on boys.

The Ministry of Public Security said 8,660 trafficked children and 15,458 women were rescued in 2011.

The ministry website added that nearly 3,200 trafficking gangs were busted, including a ring that sent women to Angola into forced prostitution.

“In November, the ministry dispatched a police team to Angola … and detained 16 suspects and freed 19 women,” it said.

Police also discovered that last year alone, more than 2,000 children were abducted and sold for adoption – a big problem in the mainland where couples unable to conceive or wanting a male heir may adopt from any source.

In November, Shandong police broke up a human-trafficking gang that bought babies from poor families to sell them for as much as US$8,000 (HK$62,400).

Abductions and trafficking have caused huge public concern, but despite regular official vows of crackdowns, incidents still emerge on a regular basis.

In one shocking scandal, thousands of people were found in 2007 to have been abducted and forced into slave labor in brickyards and mines nationwide.

More recently, 16 underage girls forced into prostitution in Inner Mongolia were rescued last April, as were 89 children in July in a crackdown on trafficking launched earlier last year.

Another 369 people were arrested in the operation that aimed to break up two “large criminal enterprises” involved in child-trafficking across 14 provinces.

Nearly 11,300 people accused of trafficking have been brought to justice since 2008 and the number of traffickers has shrunk, Xinhua News Agency said.

It also reported a drop in the number of cases involving kidnapped babies, but added a rising number of people are selling their own babies to earn money.

Most trafficked babies still go to desperate couples willing to adopt illegally.

The ministry last year built a nationwide DNA tracking system to identify and return kidnapped children.”

Baby Come Home

Baby Come Home is the Chinese site where you can view the missing children. Go to http://www.baobeihuijia.com/Index.html  Scroll to bottom. Click on double arrow above pictures to reveal the next page of the 335 pages of photos.

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Over 20 China Trafficking posts and counting…when will people wake up to what is going on?