Parents keep hope alive in search for missing son
　　In the second of a two-parter on less fortunate children in China, The Straits Times' China Bureau Chief talks to a granny who has adopted more than 30 abandoned babies, and a father who is still searching for his missing son after nearly seven years. Since 1984, Madam Wang has cared for more than 30 abandoned infants

　　By Kor Kian Beng
 
　　AN ARDUOUS journey awaits Hebei farmer Yuan Cheng each time he leaves his home in Qidaoliang village in a deep valley in Hebei province, north-east China.
　　It requires an hour's motorcycle ride - round a mountain, across a frozen stream and over rocky farmland - just to reach a thoroughfare.
　　But Mr Yuan makes this journey each year in search of his son, who went missing from his workplace in another province, just two weeks after arriving.
　　His son, Xueyu, then 15, had left home for the first time on March 13, 2007, to work as a construction apprentice in central Henan's capital Zhengzhou.
　　Till today, Mr Yuan and his wife Luo Shujuan, both 46, believe their son was abducted and sold as a slave to brick-making factories in poor provinces like Henan or Shanxi in western China.
　　"We don't know if he's still alive. We don't dare and don't want to think about it. All we know is we cannot give up looking for him as long as there is still a strand of hope," Mr Yuan told The Straits Times during a recent interview at his home.
　　Many parents live in a similar state of limbo, with Chinese media reporting that as many as 200,000 children are missing or believed to be abducted each year.
　　In the first 10 months last year, media reports said China rescued 24,000 abducted children, likely a fraction of total cases.
　　There are many factors fuelling the demand for abducted children. Childless couples are willing to pay up to 170,000 yuan (S$35,490) for a child, especially boys, and criminal syndicates sell children as slave workers to labour-intensive factories.
　　Mr Liu Junming, 34, believes his son Sirui, aged four, was abducted outside their home in Guangdong's Meizhou city on Dec 31, 2012.
　　Since then, Mr Liu has quit his job as a chauffeur in southern Shenzhen and relied on his depleting savings to fund his travels to more than 60 cities across China in search of his son.
　　He said he cannot give up, even though he and his wife have three other children. "He's my qin sheng gu rou (flesh and blood in Mandarin). Even if I still have 10 other children, I cannot stop looking for my Ruirui," he told The Straits Times as his voice trembled over the phone.
　　Mr Yuan, too, has travelled across China to look for his son, leaving his home around October each year, after harvesting his corn field. He usually travels with a group of parents he met through the media and the Internet, whose children have also gone missing.
　　Everywhere he goes, Mr Yuan distributes self-printed namecards bearing his son's photo and name, along with a reward of 20,000 yuan. He has not changed his mobile nor home number lest Xueyu or others with information on his son were to call.
　　But till this day, the closest he has come to finding his son was a phone conversation in May 2007.
　　While roaming the streets in Zhengzhou, he received a call from a stranger claiming to have seen Xueyu at a brick-making factory in Shanxi. The caller demanded 50,000 yuan from Mr Yuan in exchange for information on his son's whereabouts.
　　"I asked to hear my son's voice as proof. The next moment, I heard a boy shout 'Papa, save me!', and I could recognise that it was Xueyu," recounted Mr Yuan.
　　But he could not get enough money that day and the caller refused to pick up his subsequent calls.
　　Mr Yuan said he did not get help from the Henan and Shanxi police in locating the caller.
　　It is disheartening, but Mr Yuan, who blames himself for letting his son leave home at a tender age, says he now draws some strength from his work in rescuing other abducted children.
　　Through his forays into brick-making factories, he provided information that helped police rescue more than 100 teenage slave workers in 2007.
　　Once, he was chased out of a factory by more than 10 bat-wielding ruffians.
　　These days, he continues to rescue slave workers and at times even pays for their travels back to their families if necessary.
　　His work got him named last year by Hebei as one of the province's 10 Good Samaritans.
　　"When I help these parents find their child, I feel I have also found my Xueyu. I also hope that my good deed will lead others to do the same for me one day," said Mr Yuan, adding that losing his son has made him more careful over his daughter Xuejing, 14.
　　But chances of finding abducted children are low, based on the success rate Anhui native Shen Hao, 46, has had since he started a missing person website in 2001.
　　Some 6,600, or 30 per cent of the total 22,000 missing persons that he has been asked to search for, are minors. He has managed to locate only 300, or 4.5 per cent.
　　But Mr Shen thinks the government is taking the problem more seriously, citing the suspended death penalty that a doctor in north-western Shaanxi received on Jan 14 for stealing and selling newborn babies to traffickers.
　　Under the criminal law, child traffickers face up to 10 years in prison plus a fine.
　　Those abducting more than three kids, targeting infants, selling them overseas, and causing serious injuries or death, could receive the death penalty.
　　"But the problem is that China's courts, unlike those overseas, do not observe legal precedents. Courts have greater freedom in deciding the punishment and so there is inconsistency in enforcing the law," he said.
　　The only solution, Mr Liu believes, is to impose more severe punishment on traffickers.
　　"I hear that a healthy, cute boy can fetch up to 170,000 yuan. To these criminals, the jail time is worth the risk given the profit they can make," said Mr Liu.
　　"But if every trafficker caught is executed, do you think others would dare to continue abducting children?"
　　kianbeng@sph.com.sg