Child smuggling growing problem

Press, 9 January 1987, Page 11

Child smuggling growing problem

NZPA-Reuter Shenzhen, China

Road blocks and check points have been set up in south China in a bid to tighten security and stem

a rise in the smuggling of children into Hong Kong, Chinese officials said.

A Government official in Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, told Reuters that 14 adults and more than 50 children had been detained recently in raids by undercover agents on smuggling rings.

He said the children came mainly from Fujian province. Many of the children have parents in the British colony. They were first brought to Fujian’s border with Guangdong province and delivered to smugglers, also known as “snakeheads,” who would take them to Shenzhen and Hong Kong for a fee. The official, who asked not to be named, said smugglers often used leaky fishing boats for the final trip to Hong Kong. “This is very dangerous for the children, some of them as young as four or five years old,” he said.

He called on Chinese parents to apply for migration permits through legal channels and not to risk the lives of their children. Four children drowned off Hong Kong during one trip last year. In Hong Kong, a Government spokesman said 11 children were found on an offshore island where they had been abandoned by smugglers. He said the nine girls and two boys, aged between six and 15, would be sent back to China.