Last month the Chinese government announced that police have used DNA technology to reunite 730 families, whose children were missing, and are now speeding up the establishment of a national DNA database to assist in reuniting missing children and their families.
“The DNA database has helped reunite 730 children with their families,” Meng Qingtian, an official with the ministry’s anti-trafficking office, told China Daily at an international forum on human trafficking hosted by the All China Women’s Federation in Beijing on July 27, 2010.
Many of the children were victims of human trafficking both internally and externally, including those bought and sold on the black market. The database and testing follows a nine-month anti-trafficking campaign, which began in April 2009. The campaign enabled the rescue of 14,717 women and children, according to the ministry’s latest data which enabled the arrest of 17,528 suspects.
“The increasing number of trafficking cases in China is due to a large buyer’s market and poor awareness of victims,” Zhang Jing, a senior official of the All China Women’s Federation, said at the forum on Tuesday.
Some 30,000 to 60,000 children are reported missing every year in China, but it is hard to estimate how many are cases of human trafficking, the ministry said (Xinhuanet). Regardless the establishment of the database is a huge step in both reuniting victims and their families, but also in creating a hindrance to human traffickers.
