LOST BOY FOUND

Sun Haiyang, the father of an abducted child whose story inspired the 2014 film Dearest, has reunited with his son after 14 years of searching, attracting wellwishes from the public and calls for harsher punishments for child trafficking.

Sun’s son, originally named Sun Zhuo, was abducted in Shenzhen when he was 4 years old and has been raised by a family nearly 2,000 kilometers away in Liaocheng, Shandong province. Now 18, Sun Zhuo chose to return to his birth parents, but told journalists he does not want his “adoptive” parents to be charged with a crime.

The trafficking suspect, surnamed Wu, faces up to ten years in prison. Media have advocated equal punishment for human traffickers and buyers as the only way to truly deter child kidnappers. According to the government’s “Reunion” alert system for missing children, 4,801 children have been reported missing since 2016, and 4,707 have been found.