Combat Child Trafficking Fund Launches in China

This “fund aims to expand the network of anti-child-trafficking efforts and encourage families of missing children to continue searching.

Project Officer Li Qin said the fund also serves as an aid to  carry out national policies on child trafficking.

Led by the Ministry of Public Security, 26 ministerial sectors  established the Office for Anti-kidnapping Inter-ministerial  Joint Meeting of the State Council in 2007 specifically to work on this issue.

“We hope to be their most capable aid as a charity,” Li said.

However, child trafficking has long been a complex issue in  China. According to a Ministry of Civil Affairs estimate, there  are approximately 1 to 1.5 million child beggars nationwide.   Various groups have worked to eliminate child trafficking and  save broken families. But they were unable to completely solve  the problem.

The more he is involved as a volunteer, the more Zaizai  realizes the obstacles. “My own power is too little,” he said.

Deng Fei, one of the fund’s initiators, compares previous  searches for missing children to “finding a needle in a hay stack.” But, he said, “micro blogs have increased the  efficiency.”

In 2010, Deng’s micro-blog post entitled “Will the Internet  make another miracle?” drew the public’s attention to 3-year-old  Peng Wenle. After 1,050 days of searching and posting on the  micro blogs, an Internet user who saw the boy’s picture online  contacted the police.

Deng’s question was answered in the affirmative; Peng was  eventually found because of the micro-blog post.

Later, more people joined the initiative and started posting pictures of young beggars, because the children were often later identified as abducted children. Gradually, the movement         transformed from a publically fueled campaign to an issue that  forced official action.

“The police have played an important role, especially this one   or two years because of the push from micro blogs,” Deng said,   adding that the Ministry of Public Security Anti-Abduction  Office has created its own micro-blog for the public to report  and supervise.

“They work well with the pubic,” Deng said.

However, Deng noted that abduction is not a single problem and  cannot be resolved by only one sector. Various issues, including  family planning and lack of established adoption system, may  spark the trading of children. Due to its complexity, he expects  more sectors to get involved in the future.”

Fund launched to combat child trafficking in China

[The Jakarta Post 5/25/12 by Feng Ke, China News Network]

Xinhua news agency says that Chinese celebrities began this fund that “encourages people to report child trafficking, volunteers to trae abducted children and the media to publish information.”

A Chinese on-profit miniseries will air on the internet next week called “Seeking the lost children.”

Online Fund Set Up to Fight Child Abduction in China

[Bernama 5/25/12]

REFORM Puzzle Piece