Police search for lost parents of China's stolen children

Teenia Harmon
10-30-09
3:20
Chinese Police have a new website that is aimed at returning thousands of children who were abducted from their parents as a result of a recent crackdown on child trafficking in the country. More than 2000 missing children have been rescued since April. Of the 2000 children that have been rescued around 60 have still not been reunited with their families, and that is why the site was created. But they still have a long way to go- the 2000 recovered children is a small number compared to the reported 30,000 to 60,000 children reported missing every year. The children vary in ages, gender and reasons they were abducted. Many are boys who were taken because there is a huge market for them with China’s one child rule. They are often sold to families who cannot have a child or have had a daughter but want a son. Some of the boys were sold into illegal labor, working with dangerous brick kilns. The girls that were taken were sold as brides or sold into the labor force. Some of the girls were even sold so their parent could try again for a son. Some women were also found that had been sold for labor or prostitutes. The task of finding the children’s homes is difficult because they often “do not know where they come from, or the names of their parents, and in many cases the children have formed bonds with their new parents, further complicating the task of reuniting them with their families.”
This is such a heartbreaking story. I cannot believe that so many kinds taken from their families forcible and so little has been done about it in the past. The website is no doubt a good start but I wish there was more they could do to prevent such massive numbers of abductions. I also hate to hear what the children are being forced into sometimes; I do not understand how people can make children do such back breaking work. I also do not understand how people can buy a son when they know it had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere the people who love that child are crushed at their loss. And the fact that their children may not want to come back to them because they have bonded with their new families is so sad, I cannot imagine what those parents must go through, worrying about their child for years, hoping they will get them back, and then when they are found , the child does not even remember them. It is so unfathomably sad.
source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/police-search-for-lost-parents-of-chinas-stolen-children-1811731.html