Girl, 9, forced into begging
By Xu Chi |
April 25, 2011, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A Nine-YEAR-OLD girl has been reunited with her parents after a 35-day ordeal in which she was forced to beg on the streets.
The girl, nicknamed Tingting, sat smiling on her father's lap yesterday, holding a toy bear as she posed for the cameras in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, but her parents said it was a different story when they picked her up from the police.
"She was so scared that she was crying all the time," her mother surnamed Li said. "She refused to be hugged and wouldn't allow anyone to touch her."
Li said her daughter was covered in dirt. She told her mother the traffickers never let her take a bath.
"Although she was much thinner than before, we recognized her at first glance," her father surnamed Peng said.
"Fortunately, she didn't get hurt during her 35-day nightmare."
Peng said his daughter went missing around 6pm on February 24 when he and his wife were working at a train station in Changzhou.
Surveillance tapes showed the girl being dragged out of the station by a man in less than a minute.
The desperate parents waited at the station in the hope the girl would be returned within a few days, but they waited in vain.
Police said the girl was taken to Zhejiang Province and forced to beg in front of a fast food restaurant near Yiwu Railway Station. They said she was forced to work from early in the morning till late at night.
She was rescued after a resident became suspicious and called the police.
The man who took away the girl was caught after a junk collector at the train station in Changzhou called police when he recognized a photo of the culprit on a wanted poster.
Police are still looking for other members of the trafficking gang.
The girl, nicknamed Tingting, sat smiling on her father's lap yesterday, holding a toy bear as she posed for the cameras in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, but her parents said it was a different story when they picked her up from the police.
"She was so scared that she was crying all the time," her mother surnamed Li said. "She refused to be hugged and wouldn't allow anyone to touch her."
Li said her daughter was covered in dirt. She told her mother the traffickers never let her take a bath.
"Although she was much thinner than before, we recognized her at first glance," her father surnamed Peng said.
"Fortunately, she didn't get hurt during her 35-day nightmare."
Peng said his daughter went missing around 6pm on February 24 when he and his wife were working at a train station in Changzhou.
Surveillance tapes showed the girl being dragged out of the station by a man in less than a minute.
The desperate parents waited at the station in the hope the girl would be returned within a few days, but they waited in vain.
Police said the girl was taken to Zhejiang Province and forced to beg in front of a fast food restaurant near Yiwu Railway Station. They said she was forced to work from early in the morning till late at night.
She was rescued after a resident became suspicious and called the police.
The man who took away the girl was caught after a junk collector at the train station in Changzhou called police when he recognized a photo of the culprit on a wanted poster.
Police are still looking for other members of the trafficking gang.
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