89 children rescued in trafficking crackdown

A senior police official said on Tuesday that the 89 children rescued in the latest crackdown on child trafficking have been sent to local civil affairs departments for temporary placement, and police are searching for the their natural parents.

A baby is resued by police from a child trafficking ring in Quanzhou, Fujian province on Dec 19, 2012. [Photo/Xinhua]

"Although we collected their DNA information, many of them haven't found their natural parents," Chen Shiqu, director of the anti-human trafficking office of the criminal department under the ministry, told China Daily in an interview.

Police have rescued 89 abducted children and arrested 355 suspects after busting nine major children trafficking rings, the Ministry of Public Security announced on Monday night.

The operation was conducted between Dec 18 and 24. Under the direct command of the ministry, police from nine provincial-level regions, including Fujian, Yunnan, Sichuan and Anhui provinces, carried out a joint action targeting child trafficking, the ministry said in a press release.

Since September, Fujian police have discovered several major human trafficking gangs headed by Tan Guirong and Pu Tianhuang. Their activities were also found in some other provinces, such as Yunnan, Sichuan and Anhui, according to the ministry.

The criminal gangs used a strict management system, in which different people were assigned tasks such as buying, transporting, transiting and trafficking children, according to the ministry.

"Usually, the traffickers abducted children from Yunnan and Sichuan, then sent them to Fujian and Anhui for trafficking by train or long-distance coach," said Huang Shihai, a press officer from the ministry.

Chen said strong demand and huge profits fuel the child trafficking market.

In many parts of rural China, including Yunnan, Guizhou, Fujian and Sichuan provinces, couples with no children tend to "buy" or adopt abducted children, largely because they still believe in the importance of "carrying on the family line" and having "sons to support them when they are old", Chen said.

"In some remote villages, local residents even consider children trafficking as a good thing because they believe the traffickers will help them fulfill their dreams of … raising many children," he said.

A healthy male infant bought for 30,000 yuan ($4,810) in poverty-stricken provinces such as Yunnan can be sold for 70,000 to 90,000 yuan in some areas of the comparatively well-off provinces of Fujian and Guangdong, according to Wang Xizhang, deputy head of the criminal investigation department of Fujian Provincial Public Security Bureau.

Chen said police will adopt a "zero tolerance" attitude toward child trafficking, and conduct further DNA information matching to reunite more abducted children with their parents.

"Moreover, we will work with relevant government authorities, such as the civil affairs departments, to intensify investigation efforts and punish people who adopted abducted children or sold their own children," he said.

Since April 2009, when the ministry started a campaign to crack down on child trafficking, police on the Chinese mainland have broken up 11,000 child trafficking rings, rescuing 54,000 children, according to ministry.