Child beggar raid raises doubts about campaign
By Xu Chi |
February 8, 2011, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
AT 11:30am yesterday, outside a dilapidated house in Hunan Province's Xiangtan City, eight policemen surrounded the building, blocking each exit and waiting to go into action.
Inside were children thought to have been forced into begging by adults who looked more like human traffickers than relatives, according to Zhang Hongfeng.
Zhang, one of the people taking part in a nationwide campaign to rescue child beggars by taking pictures and posting them online, had been following the beggar "family" for days, gathering evidence.
Zhang believed yesterday's raid would free the children he'd photographed from the clutch of human traffickers. But he was mistaken.
There was no resistance when the police confronted adults inside the house. They found three children and one infant, but the children all said that the adults were their relatives.
With the children, the oldest just 8, too young to hold ID cards, the police could find no evidence to prove Zhang's assertion they were the victims of human traffickers.
A line was drawn under the case when the police admonished the adults to immediately take the children back home to Guizhou.
It was an embarrassing setback.
Despite tens of thousands of people across the country lending their support online and the campaign being widely reported in the media, not a single child has been rescued since it was launched on January 17.
A lack of evidence could be one reason, Zhang wrote in his microblog on t.sina.com. He complained that the police only asked the children whether the adults were their relatives instead of conducting further scientific investigations, such as comparing DNA.
Microblog creator Yu Jianrong, of the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, hit upon the pictures idea after he received a letter from the distraught mother of an abducted child.
Yu opened microblogs on t.sina.com.cn and t.qq.com, two popular Twitter-like services.
Since the microblogs were set up, more than 1,200 images of child beggars have been posted. The postings usually include the times and places where the children beg.
The microblogs have accumulated about 154,000 followers, including some local police officials.
Growing numbers of ordinary people are taking photos or videos for publication on the microblogs to help parents locate missing or abducted children.
But some supporters are beginning to wonder whether the campaign could have negative consequences for abducted children. Some said traffickers could also log on to find that the children they held have had their pictures published.
One said: "Would they run the risk of being caught by still taking the children to the streets, or would they abandon or kill them to protect themselves?"
Inside were children thought to have been forced into begging by adults who looked more like human traffickers than relatives, according to Zhang Hongfeng.
Zhang, one of the people taking part in a nationwide campaign to rescue child beggars by taking pictures and posting them online, had been following the beggar "family" for days, gathering evidence.
Zhang believed yesterday's raid would free the children he'd photographed from the clutch of human traffickers. But he was mistaken.
There was no resistance when the police confronted adults inside the house. They found three children and one infant, but the children all said that the adults were their relatives.
With the children, the oldest just 8, too young to hold ID cards, the police could find no evidence to prove Zhang's assertion they were the victims of human traffickers.
A line was drawn under the case when the police admonished the adults to immediately take the children back home to Guizhou.
It was an embarrassing setback.
Despite tens of thousands of people across the country lending their support online and the campaign being widely reported in the media, not a single child has been rescued since it was launched on January 17.
A lack of evidence could be one reason, Zhang wrote in his microblog on t.sina.com. He complained that the police only asked the children whether the adults were their relatives instead of conducting further scientific investigations, such as comparing DNA.
Microblog creator Yu Jianrong, of the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, hit upon the pictures idea after he received a letter from the distraught mother of an abducted child.
Yu opened microblogs on t.sina.com.cn and t.qq.com, two popular Twitter-like services.
Since the microblogs were set up, more than 1,200 images of child beggars have been posted. The postings usually include the times and places where the children beg.
The microblogs have accumulated about 154,000 followers, including some local police officials.
Growing numbers of ordinary people are taking photos or videos for publication on the microblogs to help parents locate missing or abducted children.
But some supporters are beginning to wonder whether the campaign could have negative consequences for abducted children. Some said traffickers could also log on to find that the children they held have had their pictures published.
One said: "Would they run the risk of being caught by still taking the children to the streets, or would they abandon or kill them to protect themselves?"
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