Kids abducted, parents march on the street

By Chen Hong (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-04-17 09:12

SHENZHEN -- Holding aloft banners and posters, more than 30 parents of missing children in Dongguan staged a march on Wednesday to draw the government's attention to their plight.

The parents, mostly migrant laborers working in the manufacturing hub of South China's Guangdong province, claimed that more than 500 boys went missing last year alone and at least 1,000 were abducted since 2007, the Guangzhou-based newspaper New Express reported.

The parents planned to appeal to the municipal government of Dongguan on Wednesday morning, seeking help with rescuing their kidnapped children.

But when they could not meet any senior official, they decided on the march, said a man who did not want to be named. "No official came out to meet us. We are heart-broken parents who spent all our savings and even ran into debt to search for our missing children across the country, but most cases weren't officially registered for investigation in the police offices," he said.

On Oct 18, last year, five children, including Xu Jiancheng's four-year-old daughter, went missing in Gaobu, a Dongguan town with a population of about 200,000.

Xu, who came from Central China's Hubei province, reported to the police shortly after the incident but they said they had to wait 24 hours before taking action.

The public security department of Dongguan, which said that the number of missing children was exaggerated, refused to comment on the incident yesterday.

"Abduction and trafficking of children are rampant in Dongguan because the population comprises mainly of migrant labors, who cannot afford the kindergarten fee and let their children play outside the house," Zhang Baoyan, president of a volunteer association named Baby Come Back Home.

It has set up a website, www.baobeihuijia, for parents to post details about their missing children.

More than 2,000 parents across China have registered with the website, while around 700 homeless children used it to look for their parents, Zhang said.

However, she expected a change for the better since the Ministry of Public Security launched a drive to crack down on the abduction and trafficking of women and children nationwide.

During this period, the police will act immediately after a case is filed, rather than waiting for at least 24 hours, the ministry said.