Weibo NGO aids trafficked girl, 7(2)

Zhong and his wife also grow anxious as they get older as their son and daughter refuse to raise Tingting.

"We live a poor life and are getting older, so how will Tingting live when both of us have gone?" he said.

Local residents who sympathized with Tingting's story contacted the Weibo Anti-Kidnapping Foundation, an NGO formed on the Sina microblog. A volunteer from the NGO, who asked to be named as "Zaizai" said after he investigated her situation, he reported the case to police.

"Local police promised they would sample Tingting's blood and put her in the national anti-kidnapping DNA database to find her hometown, and said they would help to solve her hukou and education issue," said Zaizai.

Police are still investigating whether Tingting was sold by her birth parents or was kidnapped.

Li Qin, from Weibo Anti-Kidnapping Foundation, said that since it was founded in April 2012, it has cooperated with police to rescue six children and arrest 12 criminals, but a major difficulty is making the public understand, especially in rural areas, that selling children is a crime which is as bad as kidnapping.

"These people have no idea that buying and selling children is also a severe crime," said Li.

Li said efforts should also be made to trace the parents after a kidnapped child is identified.

Accurate figures on the numbers of kidnapped children are hard to ascertain, but Charles Custer, an American independent documentary maker, who made Living With Dead Hearts, a documentary which focuses on kidnapped children, estimates that around 70,000 children are kidnapped every year in China.

A report from people.com.cn in December 2012 said that from September 2012 to December, nine child trafficking rings were busted, with 355 suspects arrested and 89 children rescued.