宝贝回家

NYT: Rural China’s Hunger for Sons Fuels Traffic in Abducted Boys

Saturday, April 4th, 2009 | posts | 2 Comments

Chen Fengyi’s 5-year-old son was kidnapped from outside her apartment building in Huizhou. She said the police never came.

Chen Fengyi’s 5-year-old son was kidnapped from outside her apartment building in Huizhou. She said the police never came. Source: NYTimes

An article in today’s New York Times brought me to tears this afternoon.

The story tells the plight of parents in the south of China whose children have been abducted and sold to other families in want of sons.

The children don’t travel far. From the city, many are brought to the rural areas, where demand for young boys is especially strong and where the one-child policy has further encouraged the tradition of favoring boys over girls.

The article interviews a number of families. The Chens talked about their frustrations with police indifference:

…When she is not scouring the streets at night for her son, Ms. Chen and her husband go to the local police station and fall to their knees. “We cry and beg them to help,” she said, “and every time they say, ‘Why are you so hung up on this one thing?’ ”

Many parents take matters into their own hands. They post fliers in places where children are often sold and travel the country to stand in front of kindergartens as they let out. A few who run shops have turned their storefronts into missing person displays. “We spend our life savings, we borrow money, we will do anything to find our children,” said Mr. Peng, who owns a long-distance phone call business in Gongming, not far from Shenzhen. “There is a hole in our hearts that will never heal.”…

And we learn that parents have brought their case to Beijing:

…For the parents of missing children, the heartbreak and the frustration have turned into anger. Last September, about 40 families traveled to the capital to call attention to the plight of abducted children. They staged a brief protest at the headquarters of the national television broadcaster, but within minutes, dozens of police officers arrived to haul them away.

“They dragged us by our hair and said, ‘How dare you question the government,’ ” said Peng Dongying, who lost her 4-year-old son. “I hate myself for my child’s disappearance, but I hate society more for not caring. All of us have this pain in common, and we will do anything to get back our children.”…

This website, called “Baby Come Home” 宝贝回家，is a website set up by the parents to encourage the exchange of information and gather support for their cause.

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