Man Abducted by a Child Trafficking Gang Finally Reunited with His Mother 33 Years Later

Li Jingwei, 37, was kidnapped when he was just four years old by a child-trafficking gang. He was reunited with his family after 33 years when he drew a map of his original home from memory. 

Mr Jingwei was adopted and grew up in Henan, north-central China, but said he had ‘countless nights of yearning’ and was ‘homesick since I was little’.

When he learnt about other abducted children that were reunited with relatives, Mr Jingwei decided to trace his birth parents, CNN reports.

‘So many years have passed, I don’t know if anyone in my family is looking for me,’ Mr Jingwei said in a video posted to Chinese video platform Douyin. ‘I want to be able to see my parents again while they are still here.’

Despite his young age when he was abducted, Mr Jingwei remembered startling details about his home village – including where trees grew and cows grazed, as well as the location of roads and nearby rivers. 

He remembered rice paddies and ponds near his parents’ home. As a homesick child, he regularly sketched his remaining memories of the village on to a map, he told The Paper.  

The map, which included the appearance of certain homes as well as the utensils used by villagers to cook rice, was all Mr Jingwei had to go on, as he could not remember his parents’ names or the name of his village. 

Against all odds, police matched the layout to a settlement near Zhaotong, a city in the mountains of Yunnan.

DNA tests confirmed Mr Jingwei was the missing son of a woman from the village and after an emotional phone call, the pair were reunited at Henan police station on New Year’s Day. 

‘I’ve finally found my baby,’ the woman was heard to have said. 

Sadly, Mr Jingwei’s birth father had already died at the time of the reunion. He now plans to spend the Lunar New Year with his mother and visit his father’s grave in Yunnan. 

Mr Jingwei said that as a child in 1989, he was taken by a bald neighbour who tempted him with a toy, he told China’s The Paper.

He was handed over by a trafficking gang to a family in Lankao, around 1,200 miles from his original home.

He said he drew pictures of his home at least once a day to remember his birthplace. 

China’s one child policy between 1980 and 2015 is thought to have exacerbated the problem of child abduction, with many wealthy families clamouring for a son.

A high profile case was that of Guo Xinzhen, who was abducted as a two-year-old by a woman in Shandong province, eastern China, in 1997. His father Guo Gangtang never gave up hope of finding him and the family’s nationwide search inspired a movie in 2015. 

The discovery of Guo Xinzhen last summer, now a young man aged 26, led to an emotional reunion that made national headlines.

Many children who are reunited with their original family after being abducted are reluctant to bring legal action against their foster parents because they have grown to love them.

Mr Jingwei, who is married with children, said the family that adopted him taught him ‘the principles of being a human’.

He said this was ‘so that I could study hard and become a talent in the future’.

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Original Article: Man abducted by Chinese gang when he was four is reunited with his mother 33 years later | Daily Mail Online