‘They stole my baby’: Chinese woman discovers son is alive 17 years after relatives took him and told her he was dead
- Chinese woman whose relatives stole her baby almost 20 years ago reunited with her son
- Mother and son now locked in legal battle over cost of bringing boy up as they seek to put their lives back together
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The heartbreaking story of a woman from eastern China who discovered her baby son was stolen by a relative almost two decades ago has gone viral on mainland social media.
Zhang Caihong, from Jiangsu province, has just learned that her cousin’s sister-in-law stole her son 17 years ago, hk01.com reported.
Prior to the birth to her son, Zhang feared that her ex-husband and his family might harm her so moved to the safety of her cousin’s home.
On the day of delivery, Zhang was devastated when her cousin’s sister-in-law told her that her son had been born with a severe handicap.
Zhang said she had no reason to doubt the sister-in-law’s word, and as she was bedridden following the birth, she asked the sister-in-law to seek help from a doctor.
The woman told Zhang that the boy was paralysed in both legs and convinced Zhang to give the child up.
Later Zhang’s cousin told her that her son had frozen to death after suffering from exposure. Zhang believed this at the time.
When Zhang learned by accident recently that her son was still alive and attending a secondary school she was overjoyed and began looking for the boy.
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Eventually, Zhang tracked her son down, discovering that he resembled her ex-husband. A subsequent DNA test confirmed he was her child.
At the same time, she became aware that the boy’s “adoptive” mother was the younger sister of her cousin’s wife.
Now that the truth is out, Zhang and her son want to live together but the woman and her husband who adopted the boy after he was stolen have filed a lawsuit opposing this.
The couple are demanding Zhang repay the money they spent raising the boy, which Zhang refuses to do on the grounds that they adopted her son illegally.
Zhang said she also hoped that her cousin and his wife would be punished for stealing her baby.
Zhang’s story has stunned many on mainland social media.
One person wrote: “Oh my god, what a poor soul Zhang is. Her cousin’s family is just too terrible.”
Another said: “Zhang must be very sad 17 years after she lost her baby.”
Census data for 2021 released in February by China’s National Bureau of Statistics revealed that last year the gender ratio of the country’s population remained skewed in favour of males – 723 million males compared to 689 million females.
In the traditional marriage age range of 20 to 40 there were 20 million more men than women, the data also revealed.
