China-crime/ Chinese police rescue 178 children from traffickers

Dec 7, 2011, 12:24 GMT

Beijing - Chinese police rescued 178 children - most of them young boys - and detained 608 suspects after raids on two trafficking networks spanning 10 provinces last week, the government said on Wednesday.

The police began monitoring one gang in May after a road accident led them to a man suspected of trafficking at least 26 children in the central province of Henan, the Ministry of Public Security reported on its website.

In August, detectives in the south-eastern province of Fujian discovered a second child-trafficking network, suspected of selling at least 11 children, the ministry said.

The 608 suspects were arrested in a joint operation by some 5,000 police on November 30, following a three-month investigation, it said.

'All of the children have been placed safely in welfare institutes, and some sick ones are receiving treatment in hospital,' Chen Shiqu, head of the ministry's anti-trafficking task force, told the official China Daily newspaper.

Chen was quoted as saying most of the children were boys and were aged between one month and four years.

The rescued infants would be looked after at children's homes while the authorities made efforts to locate their parents, including the use of DNA testing, he said.