Beijing’s street kids to be DNA tested

Beijing has started a campaign aimed at returning child beggars home with the aim of eradicating child street beggars by the end of 2012, Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau announced Wednesday.

The bureau will also take DNA samples to log them into a database to see if they are victims of child trafficking.

The campaign was jointly launched by a number of government agencies including public security and commission of education bureaus. It aims not only to send child beggars to their home, but will also assist them in getting back into the education system, and with career training, according to the announcement.

In the campaign, DNA samples will be taken to help any unidentified children find their parents.

From March 1, the joint team will take any child beggars whose identity is unclear to homeless rescue centers, where their DNA information will be gathered through a blood sample, said a source who is familiar with the issue at the civil affairs bureau.　

A child's DNA information will be put into DNA information bank which is dedicated to matching the DNA of trafficked children and their parents. The parents of missing children would have had to previously register with their local public security department and have given a DNA sample, the source explained. If there are any matches, the children will be sent back to their parents.　

The DNA bank was established by the Ministry of Public Security in April 2009. By September 2011, 1,400 children had been reunited with their parents through the bank, according to a report in the Beijing News.

Meanwhile, the campaign also requires civil affairs departments in the city to help children who possess a Beijing hukou (resident's permit) to receive education or career training so as to prevent them from leaving home and begging again. Children from other cities will be sent back to their hometown, where they will be sent to local homeless rescue centers. Those who cannot be identified, or repatriated to a hometown will stay in Beijing.

Shi Qinghua, headmaster of Light Love Family, a Beijing-based non-government organization for homeless children, believes that apart from merely rescuing the children, preventing them from leaving home is a more pressing issue.

"There were many cases in which children, who have been sent back home, chose to beg again," said Shi.

In Shi's opinion, family problems are the main reason that causes the children to leave home again.

"Improving family education and building a healthy environment for the children is the critical issue," he said.

Shi suggested that a system including the family, school and the neighborhood committee should be established to supervise the children's growth.

"The three parties can monitor each other so as to ensure the children are suitably looked after and educated," he said.

The Chinese government started special campaigns against woman and child abduction in 2009, and by July 2011, 23,085 women and 13,284 children had been rescued, according to the Xinhua News Agency in April 2011.　

Apart from the government efforts, online campaigns aimed at rescuing child beggars also ramped up after Yu Jianrong, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, set up a microblog on Sina Weibo in January 2011, encouraging Web users to take photos of child beggars and post them online, in the hope that children reported missing could be recognized and rescued.

"A lot of Chinese people are unaware that child begging is illegal, and the online campaign will allow them to understand they can report this illegal behavior to the police when they spot it," Yu said in an interview with Phoenix Television in March 2011.