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在线翻译:
szdaily -> In depth -> 
Children rescued from traffickers need a home
    2013-03-26  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

    Anne Zhang

    zhangy49@gmail.com

    WHEN he was 4 years old, Shen Cuifan was rescued from human traffickers by Shenzhen Luohu Police, and was then taken to Shenzhen Social Welfare Center. He has spent almost 10 years in the center waiting in vain for his biological parents to come and take him back home.

    “The chances that his parents will take him home are very tiny,” said Tang Rongsheng, director of the welfare center.

    The law in China prohibits children like Shen from being adopted and, even if there were a change in the law, Shen is now 13 years old, and the maximum legal age for adoptions here is 14.

    Shen is among 10 children in Tang’s center who were rescued from human traffickers. Most of them have been living in the center for at least 10 years and half of them will turn 14 this year.

    “These children are physically and psychologically healthy. They need and should have a home,” Tang said.

    Nowhere to call home

    According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, about 13,000 children were rescued from human traffickers around the country in 2010 and 2011, and 12,100 of them have not been reunited with their biological parents.

    This means that only 10 percent of these children were able to return home and most are being raised in welfare centers or orphanages.

    Orphans often envy children rescued from human traffickers because it means that they were not abandoned by their own parents, Tang said. But, unlike orphans, these children cannot be adopted and are thus deprived of the right to have a family.

    Children in Tang’s center soon understand their predicament as they grow up and see that orphans are adopted.

    Chen Xiaoli, who was rescued at the age of 2 and has been in the Shenzhen Social Welfare Center for 12 years, said she is jealous and frustrated every time she sees orphans at her center being adopted.

    “These children have been labeled and they become introverted and with feelings of inferiority,” said Wu Xiangxia, a carer at the center.

    Asked if she would like to have a family of her own one day, Chen said: “I can’t have one because I am not an orphan. I was rescued from human traffickers.”

    Su Yue, 6, was rescued two years ago, and she said she hated her parents for not coming to take her back home and she does not want to see them ever again.

    When Shenzhen Daily asked Shen the same question last Tuesday, the boy pursed his lips and looked away.

    Uncertain future

    Tang said that most orphans who were abandoned have physical or mental disabilities, but children rescued from human traffickers are usually “healthy, smart and cute.”

    China’s civil affairs officials and the police used to have a way to allow these children to grow up in a family. When a kidnapped child was found, the family that bought the child from human traffickers would be allowed to continue raising the child if the new parents were found to be suitable. The police would at the same time publish information about the child online and, if the biological parents claimed the child, the foster family was required to return the child unconditionally.

    But China passed a law in July 2011 prohibiting families that bought children from fostering them. And Tang said that this means these children will have to stay in orphanages and would not have a family until their biological parents find them.

    Tang said that, as time goes by, it becomes more unlikely that parents appear — if they are determined to find their children, they will eventually find them with the help of advanced technology — adding that parents just need to call the police and compare their DNA information.

    Tang said that there are three main explanations why the parents decide not to seek their lost children: The parents may have made a profit from selling their children to human traffickers, they may have given birth before being legally married — and some may have formed a family and do not want the children to come back into their life — or the parents may live in remote mountain areas and have no idea about technological advances such as DNA.

    “These children are actually abandoned. They are orphans,” Tang said.

    He also said that the Chinese Government should change the laws to allow these children to be adopted if the parents do not claim them within three years.

    Liang Zhiyi, a police official in Foshan, Guangdong Province, and a delegate to the National People’s Congress, made a proposal to the nation’s top legislature during the annual meetings of NPC and CPPCC in Bejing, suggesting that children rescued from human traffickers should be put up for adoption if the authorities cannot find their biological parents within a year after their rescue.

    Liang stressed that such children should be returned to their biological parents if the parents find the children and want them back.

    Alternative families

    In the meantime, Tang has been trying to give a home to the children at his welfare center.

    The center recruits qualified families and gives them subsidies to foster a child. The center also chooses a staff member to form a sort of model family where children eat and sleep, though they spend most of the day at the welfare center.

    Tang said the best solution is to allow adoptions but, even though according to Chinese law orphans under the age of 14 can be put up for domestic and international adoptions, most Chinese families are not willing to adopt a child above the age of 4.

    “The children are innocent. We should try to find them a normal family as early as possible and prevent them from being harmed by their traumatic experience,” Tang said.

    Jiang Xiangbo, 3, might have a chance to be adopted. He is being raised in one of the model families. His model mother Li Xinlian said Jiang is a cheerful and smart boy. He is too young to understand his background and she worries that if he stays in the center he will become as depressed, silent and insecure as the older children.

    “We can wait, but don’t let the children wait. They need a home to have a normal, happy childhood,” Tang said.

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