BEIJING: Police in China have rescued 92 abducted children following a series of raids against an organised kidnapping gang operating across the country, state media reported yesterday.
The children, victims of China’s burgeoning child trafficking industry, were rescued along with two women, according to a statement from the Ministry of Public Security quoted by state-run news agency Xinhua. More than 300 gang members were taken into custody, the report said.
The arrests come at a time of growing public outrage over gangs specialising in the kidnapping and sale of children.
Police enquiries were initially sparked by a child abduction case in Henan province, central China, according to the ministry statement, and later snowballed into an investigation across 11 provincial-level regions primarily throughout China’s southwest.
According to Xinhua, the investigation uncovered a gang operating with “clear divisions of work” where kidnappers would seize children in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces for deliverymen who would then drive them to other regions and into the hands of sellers.
The arrests were made on September 11 but only became public knowledge with the release of the ministry statement.
Abductions and trafficking in China have caused huge public concern, but despite regular government vows to crack down hard on the crime, incidents still emerge on a regular basis.
Trafficking of children is blamed in part on the “one-child” policy, which has put a premium on baby boys, with girls sometimes sold off or abandoned.
Last month, families in the northern province of Shaanxi accused a local doctor of persuading them to give up their children shortly after birth. Following a blaze of publicity, a number of officials in the province were sacked while the doctor and several alleged traffickers were arrested. Some of the children were eventually returned to their families.
AFP
