Police dismiss report that 200,000 children abducted in China yearly

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Children rescued from child abductors in 2006 sit in the Panlong Public Security Bureau in Kunming, Yunnan. Photo: AP

Published: 10:21am, 3 Jun 2013Updated: 4:13am, 29 Aug 2013

A senior police official dismissed a state media report that some 200,000 children disappear in China every year.

China National Radio reported the figure in a nighttime newscast on Saturday, fuelling an ongoing debate about how children should be better protected from exploitation and harm. Over the last weeks, several reports of sexual abuse of primary school childern have caused an outcry throughout China. Cases of child trafficking appear regularly in Chinese newscasts.

“According to incomplete statistical figures, around 200,000 children disappear in China every year; only 0.1 per cent are found and returned,” the report said. China does not publish figures on how many children are abducted or sold every year.

Police denied the report. “This figure is untrue. There is no basis for it,” Chen Shiqu, the head of the Ministry of Public Security’s department in charge of handling children abductions, said in a microblog post. The office was set up in 2007.

Last month, Chen’s department said it had solved 54,000 cases of trafficked children between April 2009 and the end of 2012.

The trafficking industry was “booming”, Chen said in April. Traffickers buy children for about 30,000 yuan (HK$37,000) and sell them for 70,000 yuan to 90,000 yuan, he said.

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