Crime fighter dedicates life to reuniting families
For the past 20 years, Fan Jinsong has tracked hundreds of abducted and missing people and brought hope to families who thought they would never see their loved ones again.
The 48-year-old director of the human-trafficking investigation division at the Chongqing Public Security Bureau, has investigated more than 300 such cases since 2000.
Fan has arrested 600 suspects and rescued about 400 abducted women, children and disabled people, some of whom were forced to participate in criminal activities.
In 2013, the All-China Women’s Federation honored him as a national role model in safeguarding the rights and interests of women and children. Last year, he was recognized as one of the nation’s top 100 police crime fighters.
As a father, Fan knows well what his job means to the victim’s families. He recalled an incident early in his career when immense gratitude was shown by the family of a rescued child.
“On hearing of our return after we succeeded in rescuing the child, his relatives set off firecrackers kilometers away and met us on their knees,” Fan said.
“The scene touched me deeply. That was when I made up my mind to dedicate myself to the job.”
While the cases are treated as human trafficking, not all are criminal and some are simply missing persons or runaways. Finding missing people is not easy.
Fan and his team have traveled all over the country — even to isolated mountain villages and border regions — to investigate cases. In 2014, his team traveled more than 70,000 kilometers in over 300 days.
Though he has experienced dizziness and headaches for several years caused by high blood pressure, he continues to work. To avoid missing any clues or help with an investigation, he keeps several phone chargers in his car, home and office. He once received more than 240 phone calls in one afternoon.
Fan coordinated with several departments to establish a fast channel to collect and test the DNA of suspected abducted children that meet the national DNA database requirements. He also started the Journey Home Sina Weibo social media account to strengthen social interaction about information on such cases.
“My father was a police officer and I admired the profession when I was a child,” he said. “I never regret it. This is what I want to do.”
In 2009, the Ministry of Public Security set up a mechanism specializing in the investigation of human-trafficking cases. Since then, the number of child-trafficking cases has declined significantly in China thanks also to the efforts of public security agencies.
Annual abductions of children have dropped to around 20, with all such cases solved in a timely manner, ministry officials told a news conference on March 15.
In May 2016, a national platform for the release of information on missing children was also established. As of this month, nearly 5,000 pieces of information had been released and more than 98 percent of those reported missing found, the ministry said.
“There are fewer cases of trafficking in China nowadays. People have better economic conditions and stronger awareness of self-protection,” Fan said.
“But we still face a tough task to combat some emerging new types of crime, such as manipulated juvenile delinquency.”
He urged people to pay more attention to children’s mental health as he has found that most of the missing cases involve runaway children.
“Kids run away from home and often get lost after having conflict with their parents,” he said. “We should strengthen the public security education to help kids better protect themselves.”