It’s 2026, there are no human traffickers who snatch children on the street…
You often see videos online about “human traffickers snatching children on the street” or “bad people leading children away are actually trafficking them”. I can responsibly tell you that if the video is about something that happened in a Chinese city after 2020, then it must be fake.
Without any exceptions, any rumors about strangers trafficking children after 2020 are all false.
In these false rumors, some of the footage is real, but the people involved misunderstood, and more of them are rumors fabricated out of various different motives.
On January 27th, a woman in Luzhou, Sichuan, released a video claiming that her daughter was almost abducted by human traffickers near a shopping mall while walking home from school alone.
Not only the mother was speaking, but the little girl also appeared on camera to repeat the thrilling scene, saying that a middle-aged man wearing a black mask, a black hat, and black clothes reached out to grab her.
The adults and children said the same thing, so people had to believe it, and the rumor of human traffickers abducting a little girl on the street spread in Luzhou…
The next part of the story, I believe everyone has guessed, the local police took it seriously and quickly intervened in the investigation, and found that the surveillance showed that the little girl left with her classmates in her family’s car directly after school that day, and there was no such thing as going home alone, let alone human traffickers in black clothes and black masks.
In short, the plot of child abduction was purely fabricated, the adults were making it up, the children were acting, and no one in the family had a clear mind…
Of course, the above is just a recent individual case, what I want to tell you is the overall situation:
It’s 2026, there is no such thing as child abduction on the street anymore! It’s not that it’s decreased, but that it’s completely gone, not a single case.
Most of the videos we see related to child abduction are similar to the Luzhou case above, which were fabricated by the parties out of profit motives or “out of good intentions to remind”.
There are also some cases where “children were snatched” but do not belong to child abduction:
The first type, divorced couples snatching children on the street due to disputes over child custody
For example, a real case that happened at the entrance of a primary school in Shanghai in 2022, with videos and the truth, a man snatched a little girl at the school gate.
If people who don’t know the situation take the footage, it will naturally be spread as human traffickers abducting children on the street, but in fact, it is a dispute between divorced couples over custody. The man’s behavior is of course also bad, but it is completely different in nature from child abduction, right?
The second type, strangers teasing children, misunderstandings about abduction caused by parents’ overreaction
For example, a real case that happened in Hunan half a month ago, a woman inexplicably stroked the top of another child’s head, and also took the child’s hand, leading to the parents misunderstanding that the child was being snatched, and calling the onlookers to subdue the “human trafficker” on the spot…
These types of cases need to be further divided into two situations:
Some are the older generation’s lack of boundaries, for example, my mother will say how cute and beautiful a child is when she sees them on the street, and try to touch the child’s head, and if I’m there, I’ll stop her immediately, it’s so embarrassing. Heaven and earth conscience, my mother has no malice, she doesn’t think there is anything wrong with her actions, but thinks she is releasing kindness.
Some are special groups of people with mental illnesses who will try to take other people’s children away. For example, a real case that happened in Shanxi in October 2024.
This situation no family wants to encounter, but generally speaking, even if the child is really taken away, it is easy to find them back, because the mentally ill are not taking the child away for the purpose of selling them for money.
The third type, the onlookers’ sense of justice exploded, beating up the people who do good deeds as human traffickers
A real case that happened in Nanchang, Jiangxi in April 2024, a 3-year-old boy was separated from his family and stood alone in the vegetable market crying, an aunt in her 50s saw it and immediately went forward to ask about the situation, holding the child to comfort him. However, because the child kept crying and shouting “I want to find grandma”, the onlookers thought the aunt was a human trafficker, and their emotions were instantly ignited.
The video shows that this kind-hearted aunt was beaten up by the onlookers, her hair was pulled and her head was twisted and beaten…
You can imagine that before the police investigated the truth, the onlookers who participated in the beating must have thought they were great heroes who were upholding justice and eliminating evil.
The fourth type, parents begging with their children are reported as human traffickers
This kind of misunderstanding is actually the most common…
Because there were real cases of “child abduction causing disability for begging” in history, many people still believe that the children begging on the street are victims of abduction. Anyone who sees adults begging with children will suspect that they are child trafficking victims, and then take videos to question, and report to the police.
But in fact, there are some family situations that we find difficult to understand, and parents will beg with children. It is of course wrong for parents to do this, and it is also illegal, but it is fundamentally different from child abduction.
For example, real cases that happened in 2014 and 2016, respectively, the father begging with the child and the mother begging with the child, and after the police investigation, they were all their own children.
The father who begged with the child said that he begged in Guangzhou for 7 days and was questioned by the police 7 times, obviously the onlookers reported it.
In reality, when encountering adults begging with children, I still encourage everyone to call the police, but the purpose of calling the police is to get the child help and be able to receive a normal education, rather than reporting that a child has been abducted by human traffickers.
I repeat again:
It’s 2026, there are no human traffickers in China who are professional child abductors, and it is even less possible for human traffickers to snatch children on the street in a bustling area.
Child trafficking crimes still exist in China today, but the vast majority are children’s relatives who sell them by hand under the name of “adoption”, and there are very few cases of giving birth to children for profit and selling them.
Yes, it is far beyond the understanding of normal people, but the truth is that child trafficking is most common among biological parents, and grandparents and other relatives who do not want children for various reasons.
For example, a real case that happened in 2022, Huang, 23, sold his own 2 biological sons by hand.
I can tell you with great certainty that since 2020, there has not been a single case of a child being abducted on the street by a stranger in mainland China, not a single one.
If anyone can find a counterexample, I will give you a 666 yuan red envelope and publicly apologize to the readers.
Repeatedly emphasizing this is not to say that children are not in any danger when playing outside. In fact, children playing outside alone face risks such as traffic accidents, drowning, getting lost, accidentally eating poison, being sexually assaulted, and being bullied by other children, which need to be strengthened in education and prevention.
But one thing, you don’t need to worry at all that your child will be abducted by human traffickers, it doesn’t exist.
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