Chinese girl abducted, hidden and beaten finally finds birth parents 21 years on
New family had prevented her returning home, but website leads to DNA match and tearful reunion with parents who could not afford to look for her
A woman has finally been reunited with her birth parents 21 years after she was abducted as a child in southwestern China.
Wang Xue, known by her nickname Little Swallow, met her father and mother on Friday after DNA tests confirmed they were her biological parents, Guizhou City Daily reported on Sunday.
Wang was seven years old when she was taken by a stranger on the way to school in 1997, the report said.
Her parents were identified when she registered with a website that helps families reunite. Blood samples were taken from Wang and her parents, and came back positive on Wednesday.
Wang immediately made plans to meet her birth parents again, and was greeted on Friday by streets filled with family and local people, holding balloons and banners, the report stated.
“Now I have finally met my daughter, I have finally seen her again in my lifetime,” her elated father told the press during their emotional reunion on Friday.
In 1997, Wang was living with her grandparents in Xingren county, in southwest China’s Guizhou province, while her parents worked in the fields.
As she was walking to school a woman stopped her and asked the child to help her carry some things home. When Wang refused, the woman pulled her onto a tricycle and gave her something to eat.
Wang fell asleep before waking up in Nayong county, almost 300km away, the report stated.
She was sent to the home of a couple who became her foster parents. Wang heard of people searching for her, but her new parents did not let her out of the house, she was quoted as saying.
They even sent her to their relatives’ home to live for two years to avoid her being found, she said. She tried to escape repeatedly but was always caught and beaten.
“It was common to be locked in, be beaten and be threatened,” Wang said.
In the meantime, her birth parents divorced and her mother moved to Xinjiang province in western China, while her father went to Zunyi, another city in Guizhou province. They made attempts to find Wang, before eventually giving up their search because they could not afford it.
Despite this, Wang held out hope that she would meet them again and reminded herself repeatedly of her biological family members.
She knew her own nickname, her grandfather’s and uncle’s names Wang Kaiming and Wang Yinghong, that she had a younger brother and that her parents were migrant workers elsewhere.
In March, Wang, who now lives in Zhejiang, registered on a website run by volunteers, hoping for a miracle. With the information she provided, a volunteer managed to contact her family.
The grandfather she remembered had since died and her parents had left, but her grandmother recognised pictures shown by volunteers and matched them with childhood photographs of her own.
