MOM WHO HELPED REUNITE 29 KIDS FOUND HER OWN SON
A Chinese mother who helped reunite 29 children with their families finally got her own missing son back. Li Jingzhi had been looking for Mao Yin since he vanished as a toddler.
Mao, then 34, was reunited with Li and his father, Mao Zhenjing, at a police news conference in Xi’an on May 18, 2020.
“I would like to thank the tens of thousands of people who helped us,” Li said at the news conference.
Mao was taken on October 17, 1988, while his father was bringing him home from nursery in Xi’an, the BBC reported.
The day he vanished
The boy asked for water, so his father stopped at a hotel entrance. He looked away briefly while cooling hot water, and the boy was gone.
The family searched in and around Xi’an and put up posters. An early suspected match proved false.
A mother’s search
Li quit her job and handed out about 100,000 flyers across multiple provinces and municipalities. She also went on Chinese television programs, including The X Factor, to appeal for help.
She joined Baby Come Back Home, a volunteer group that helps families search for missing children. While her own son was still missing, she helped reunite 29 children with their families, Chinese state media reported.
Li once described her son as a baby as “very clever, cute, and healthy” in an interview with the South China Morning Post.
How he was found
Police later received a tip about a man in Sichuan province who had been adopted as a baby years earlier. They located him, and DNA testing confirmed he was related to Mao Zhenjing and Li.
The man had been renamed Gu Ningning and ran a home-decoration business.
The news reached Li on Mother’s Day in China. She later told the BBC that the Xi’an Public Security Bureau told her: “Mao Yin has been found.”
“This is the best gift I have ever got,” Li said after hearing the news.
Police said Mao had allegedly been sold as a boy to a childless couple for 6,000 yuan.
Mao described his feelings about the future as “not sure.” He said he planned to spend time with his parents. Li said she intended to keep working with Baby Come Back Home.
The bigger picture
China had no official figures for child trafficking at the time of the reunion. Baby Come Back Home’s website listed thousands of posts from parents seeking missing boys and girls.
The country’s Ministry of Public Security has built a DNA database and a system called Reunion to help match missing children with their families.
The investigation into the 1988 disappearance was ongoing, and authorities had not released any information about the couple who raised Mao.
