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A dad has rescued his 12-year-old son a decade after he was abducted as a toddler by child traffickers.
Liu Liqin’s 10-year search for his boy ended last month after a DNA test confirmed his identity and the police retrieved him from a man who paid 25 000 CNY (about R53 800) to buy little Liu Jingjun from a trafficker in 2010.
In April 2010, Liu, who was two at the time, was with his sister outside their home in the city of Taiyuan in north-eastern China when he was kidnapped.
His sister reportedly went inside their home to get a snack and when she went back outside her little brother was no longer there.
“I’ve been deceived by fraudsters and lost tens of thousands in the process, but I didn't ignore any tips that might lead to my son,” Liqin said.
In May 2018, the desperate dad opened an account on the video-streaming platform, Kuaishou, and uploaded videos and pictures of his missing son.
In July, an anonymous netizen sent the dad a private message saying that his son was in the county of Jiaocheng.
Liqin only took the message seriously after the netizen messaged him again five months later with his son’s location.
The father then visited the county in December to look up the address and took a “blurry photo of the kid”, adding that he looked identical to his son.
He later sent his younger brother, Liu Lilong, to take a better photo of the boy and after successfully getting some snaps of the 12-year-old lad, they ran them through an online platform which helps find missing children.
The result showed a 67% match and the platform recommended a DNA test.
The family decided to obtain strands of hair from the boy for the DNA test which came back positive, according to local media.
The son was retrieved from the address in Jiaocheng on 2 January this year, according to reports, and a man who goes by the surname Zhang told them he bought the boy from a human trafficker 10 years ago.
The police said Zhang has been kept in a detention centre since last month and officers have managed to arrest the suspected trafficker.
Liqin said he’s rebuilding his relationship with his son and encouraged other parents in the same situation not to give up hope.
“My journey to find my son has ended, but I'm still doing volunteer work to help families become reunited,” he said.
“I hope those who haven't found their children can be encouraged by my story so we can fight to get their families back together.”
Source: Magazine Features
