A young woman buys a handicraft at a charity bazaar staged to raises funds to help families with missing children.(Photo/Shanghai Daily)
Children's Day on June 1 is not only a day to give thanks for the children we have but also to think hard about those we don't have anymore.
The issue of missing or abducted children has come to the forefront of public awareness. Two films about parents looking for lost children have been produced in the past two years: "Lost and Love," starring Andy Lau, and "Dearest," starring Zhao Wei.
One of the best-known non-government groups in the field of missing children is the website Baobeihuijia, or Baby Back Home. It has been in operation for nearly 10 years and coordinates more than 220,000 volunteers. The group claims to have reunited 1,537 children with their families.
A WeChat application called China's Child Safety Emergency Response was also launched last year to disseminate information about missing children. Another website called Ruijiexunzi, started in 2015, offers free analysis of facial, vocal and eye to characteristics of submitted traces to see if they match relatives of missing children.
In Shanghai, the incidence of children missing or abducted is lower than in rural areas, but it's hard to get a handle on actual numbers.
Cases of child abduction and trafficking have been decreasing since the Public Security Ministry launched a campaign in 2009 to raise public attention to the issue.
Since then, about 4,000 children across China have been found through a DNA database established by the ministry. However, that is estimated to be less than a 0.2 percent recovery rate.
On May 15, the ministry initiated a new program to disseminate information about missing children to the public via social media.
Xiong Bingqi, an education expert, says the government needs to go a step further and establish a national child-protection program to reduce the incidence of children going missing.
"One reason for such crimes is that many couples who can't have children are often unable to adopt children legally," he says.
In many rural areas, people have no idea about the procedures for adopting a child and aren't aware that buying children is criminal.
"The government should provide an easier means for couples to adopt children and educate the public on the laws against child trafficking," he says.
The public has certainly shown its willingness to aid efforts to find missing children and reunite them with their families.
Metro passengers often take photos of beggars carrying children and send them to police to determine if they are victims of abduction and child trafficking. The information is also spread online, though the success rate is generally poor.
Ye Weiwei, director of the Hope for Home program in the China Charities Aid Foundation for Children, lauds public interest in the cause and encourages everyone to become involved.
Last weekend, about 100 local high school students raised more than 61,000 yuan (US$9,384.60) at a charity bazaar to help families with missing children.
"From news reports, we learned that the parents of lost or abducted children often stop working to go look for their kids," Wang Yinying, a senior at Wei Yu High School, tells Shanghai Daily. "They end up living in poverty during their search."
Last year, seven students from the Middle School affiliated to Shanghai International Studies University raised funds online to print information about missing children on parcels. They took the idea from the missing children on milk cartons in the US.
"Chinese families do not drink as much milk as Americans, but online shopping is popular here and parcels are being sent to every corner of the country every day," says Yan Yifan, director of the student program.
