Photo Gallery Searching for China's Missing Kids

Human trafficking, including stealing and selling children, is widespread in China. Because the police are powerless, desperate parents join forces to search for their sons and daughters. But their efforts are usually unsuccessful, because the business is as profitable as the drug trade.
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A rare happy ending. Wang Bangyin, a farmer in the Guizhou Province, is reunited with his son after he was freed by police from human traffickers.

Foto: ? China Daily China Daily Information Corp - CDIC / Reuters/ REUTERS
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Parents demonstrate against kidnapping in Dongguan, where 1,000 children disappeared between 2008 and 2009. The number of abducted children in China remains alarmingly high where the demand for male heirs has fueled trafficking.

Foto: ? STR New / Reuters/ Reuters
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Photographs of some of the lost children of Dongguan. The police only listed 200 kidnapping victims in their files, saying there was no proof in the other cases that a crime had been committed.

Foto: ? Bobby Yip / Reuters/ REUTERS
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Activist Shen Hao with playing cards that feature images of missing children. Shen has founded a network of volunteers dedicated to finding missing people.

Foto: China Photos/ Getty Images
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Shen (l) at a demonstration in Chongqing. "Child abduction," says Shen, "is a worldwide problem. It's an extremely profitable business, like the drug trade."

Foto: Andreas Lorenz
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Li Shouquan and his wife hold up photographs of their kidnapped son Baotong. A man grabbed the two-year-old boy in November, 2008 while he was playing in the courtyard of the family's apartment building.

Foto: Andreas Lorenz