A BOY who had been missing for nearly three years in Shenzhen has been found by police with the help of a microblog.
Peng Gangfeng, a native of Hubei, found his 3-year-old son Pen Wenle was missing in March 2008 in Heshuikou Community in Gongming Subdistrict, Guangming New Zone, where Peng opened a telephone bar to make a living.
He and his wife searched for the whole night and later opened a Web site with photos of his missing son. But there were no positive results for almost three years.
Events turned on Feb. 2, New Year s Eve, when a netizen contacted Peng, saying he had seen a photo of a boy looking like his son in a microblog. The photo showed him playing in a village in Peizhou, Jiangsu Province. The netizen sent the color photo of the boy to Peng, who confirmed the boy was his son.
Shenzhen police immediately sent officers to Miaoliu Village in Baji Township in Peizhou City and rescued Peng Wenle.
According to police, the boy s name had been changed to Han Longfei. The woman who raised Peng said the man who had abducted Peng from Shenzhen had died of cancer last year.
Several other lucky children have also been returned home by microblogs.
Yu Jianrong, a professor at the Urban Development Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences initiated a microblog campaign on Jan. 25, hoping the relatives of missing children might recognize them through photos posted online.
The microblog is attracting nationwide attention with pictures of more than 900 child beggars posted in two weeks including 70 children on Shenzhen streets. The microblog who has helped locate Peng Wenle was a different one set up by a journalist surnamed Yu.
Among the photos on the microblog established by Yu, the identities of four child beggars had been confirmed.
Yu urged people to take photographs of children to help identify those who had been illegally sold because it could change the life of an abducted child by taking this simple action.
He called on anyone who came across disabled or injured children begging for money with their relatives on the streets or in subway trains to take pictures with cell phones or cameras.
Chen Shiqu, director of the Ministry of Public Security s anti-abduction department, encouraged people to upload more pictures of begging children so they could crack down on the trade.
These pictures could be vital in tracking down children who may have been missing from home for years, he said.
Zhou Baojun, assistant spokesperson of the Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau, said police would give full support to the online campaign.
The One Foundation suggested a Web site company could establish a databank of street beggars where families could search for their missing children. Secretary general Yang Peng of the foundation said it could arrange volunteers to maintain the Web site and fund the program.
(Han Ximin)
