Photo Exhibit of China’s Missing Children Offers Glimpse into On-the-Ground Rescue Work
All Girls Allowed volunteers urge “increased vigilance” among adoptive parents and agencies
What: Large Photo Exhibit of Missing Children in China
When: Tuesday, Aug. 16, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Where: South Steps, Union Square, New York City
New York, NY – Since the early 1980’s, millions of children have been trafficked in China. As China’s economy prospers, the severity of the problem increases.
The One-Child Policy and a cultural preference for sons have created a massive gender imbalance. Many families in China resort to buying girls and young women to marry to their sons, which has led to the recent widespread kidnapping of girls and selling of women and children in the black market.
To highlight these problems, All Girls Allowed and Women’s Rights in China will exhibit hundreds of photographs of missing children at New York City’s Union Square from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, August 16th. All Girls Allowed volunteers on the ground in China collected these photographs from a majority of provinces. Many of the volunteers were themselves parents of missing children.
Parents and willing individuals in China organized into support and rescue groups and covered much of China in special anti-trafficking campaigns. Independent, civil society initiatives do not receive any assistance from the Chinese government. Instead, these volunteer activists have frequently been arrested and harassed throughout rescue campaigns or while petitioning the government.
“The Chinese government could have done much more to combat the problem of child trafficking,” says Zhang Jing, Operations Director of All Girls Allowed, “But the new resources have not been used to combat trafficking effectively. The attitude of local authorities towards our volunteers has often been either indifferent or hostile.”
This exhibit will also highlight the corruption of the Chinese government’s welfare system and call for increased vigilance among American parents who are looking to adopt Chinese orphans. Recently, a number of high-profile reports uncovered cases in which Chinese Birth Planning Commission officials kidnapped newborns from their homes as “fines” for “illegal above-quota births” and profited by selling them through government-run orphanages for adoption by American or European parents.
Jing says, “This is a widespread practice that has only recently come into the attention of the western media. We wish to increase the awareness of the American public. If a kidnapped or confiscated child leaves China, its parents have no way to recover or find closure. We will do our best to assist concerned parents both in America and in China who contact us through our website.”
For interviews, contact Tessa Dale at tessa@allgirlsallowed.org (617-275-9176) or Women’s Rights in China at wrichina@yahoo.com, (718) 888-7988.
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