2011-02-15 07:40

In fact, the government has organized five major crackdowns on human trafficking since the 1990s. Two years ago, a national DNA database was founded to assist. Blood samples from parents of children reported missing and samples from children of unclear background were collected and stored for automatic matching.

Zhang Baoyan is one of the first people who suggested the database to the ministry. "So far, over 900 children and their parents were united under the help of the DNA database," said Zhang, director of a non-governmental website, Baby Come Home, which helps parents exchange information and search for missing children.

Inspired by the micro blog campaign and Peng's story, Zhang opened a micro blog account for her website a week ago to increase the exchange of information. More than 80,000 followers have been added.

"Every piece of new message or picture of missing children we put up to our micro blog gets retweeted continuously," Zhang said. "We are definitely going to rely more in our future work on micro blogs."

A micro blog campaign in China to find stolen children has swept the country. [Photo/provided to China Daily]

Differing views

Some netizens prefer to believe in the power of the Internet over the police when its comes to find missing children. Yi Xiwei said the child beggars she ran into Sunday in Chongqing were standing just 100 meters from a police patrol station.

"One child was begging and singing using a microphone, and they have been there for a few days," Yi said. "There's no way these police wouldn't have noticed. I think a better chance to attract attention for these children is on the Internet."

Some people argue that the campaign violates the children's right to control their own portraits (images). Some say the campaign has deprived beggars of their right of survival. And some fear the campaign might trigger traffickers' violence toward the children.

"Begging itself is already an action of exposing the children's portraits. And using children to beg is illegal," Professor Yu countered. "Our goal is to make people realize that, in a civilized world, children should be in school instead of begging on the street."

For Sun Haiyang, Peng's reunion with his son and the heated micro blog campaign are a huge encouragement. The 37-year-old man lost his son, also 3, in Shenzhen in 2008. He and 17 other parents used to be Peng's "searching partners". After hearing of Peng's success, Sun is now pouring all his energy into monitoring micro blogs and sleeping less than three hours a day, he said. Each similar picture or phone call from warmhearted friends makes his heart jump.

"Although it has all been false alarms so far, I believe the scope and amount of information on micro blogs will provide a bigger chance," Sun said. "Maybe one day I'll hear news about my boy from a phone call like Peng did, that simple."

Xing Zhengguang's outlook is not as bright. A 33-year-old Shaanxi farmer, he lost his 1-year-old son in 2009.

"I heard that the abducted child in Shenzhen has been found in the end," said Xing, whose family earns less than 1,000 yuan ($150) per month. "It is lucky that they own the privilege of finding their son using advanced computer technique, which is kept from us by overwhelming poverty."

Zhang Yuchen contributed to this story.

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