Parents Lose Children, Then Lose the Right to Look for Them (Video)

An often overlooked group among the swelling ranks of the Chinese Communist Party’s least-wanted.
Parents Lose Children, Then Lose the Right to Look for Them (Video)
Over 30 parents from various places in China holding a large banner with photos of their children in Beijing. (Epoch Times Archive)
10/6/2010
Updated:
10/1/2015

[ Chinese Parents Search for Missing Children - NTDTV ]

An often overlooked group among the swelling ranks of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) least-wanted, and the nation’s most disenfranchised, are the parents of missing children.

Groups of parents take to the streets of Beijing with a long banner displaying photos of their missing children. On Sept. 29, The Epoch Times interviewed several of them. “Nowadays, there is only one child in every household. Losing a child is like the end of the world,” said one parent. “We show these photos in Beijing to raise awareness so this will not happen to other families.”

One parent said that when they were searching for their children in Beijing, the police chased them every day. “A friend of mine in Beijing called me yesterday and told me that Beijing CCP officials and police arrived at the place where we had held our activity right after we had left. They were looking for us, wanting to arrest us and send us home.”

According to one of the parents, security officials want them to simply hush up, because “The CCP believes that it is a shame for the CCP that there are so many missing children.”

They did not mean to embarrass the regime, this parent said, but instead want stricter laws on human trafficking. “The CCP needs to take this seriously. Tragically, there are more and more cases of broken families happening now in China.”

One of the parents, Zheng, said: “I am from a village in Hebei [a northern Chinese province]. I lost my son when he was 15. It’s been four years and I can’t find him.” In the summer of 2006, Zheng sent his son to Beijing to see the world and to help his uncle sell kebabs. One morning, the uncle woke up and Mr. Zheng’s son, who had been sleeping alongside him, was gone. No one could find him.

<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/ParentsLookingForChildren_2.jpg" alt="Over 30 parents from various places in China holding a large banner with photos of their children in Beijing. (Epoch Times Archive)" title="Over 30 parents from various places in China holding a large banner with photos of their children in Beijing. (Epoch Times Archive)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1813807"/></a>
Over 30 parents from various places in China holding a large banner with photos of their children in Beijing. (Epoch Times Archive)
“I have looked many places for my son over the past four years. In our village, there is no benefit of any kind and we were totally dependent on our son taking care of us in our old age. My wife has mentally collapsed. She cries every day and stays next to the telephone, waiting for a phone call. I can’t stand being at home,” Zheng said.

“After I lost my child, I especially paid attention to news and information regarding missing children. The communist regime lies and tries to cover up for these crimes. For example, when there are two children missing, the state-run media reports that there is only one child missing; when two missing children are found, they report that ten were found,” he said.

While searching for his son, Zheng met other parents whose children are also missing. “My car is covered with pictures of missing children from Shenzhen, Guangdong, and Shanxi. There are more and more children missing in China now.”

Zheng says that parents have gained support from the media in countries such as the U.S. and New Zealand. “They left messages in our QQ [Chinese Internet chat tool] and told us to ask if we need any help.”

When he and ten parents recently went to Shenzhen and to put up posters of their missing children, the local police arrested them and confiscated their car—they were accused of shaming the communist regime. “These parents called me and I quickly placed a call to a media outlet in the U.S.,” Zheng said. Phone calls were made to the police by both domestic and international media, and the police released the parents the next day.

Another parent, Li Jiancheng, also lost his son. “In early September this year, my wife woke up one morning to find that our four month old son who was sleeping right next to her was gone. Nothing else in the house was missing. We called the police and they came but they didn’t find any clues. We have been looking for our son ever since,” Li said.

Li’s friend in Beijing said that in the process of helping Li look for his missing son, he has helped others find over 80 missing children of a similar age. Li’s son is still missing.

Read the article in Chinese.