Relief centers

Two staff members of the Xinjiang civil affairs department accompany 10-year-old Akbar Yusup back to Urumqi from Beijing. Zhang Wande / China Daily

Helping vagrant children get back to Xinjiang is not new, but the intensity and coordination of efforts are. The Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau has sent groups of the children home 36 times since 2004.

"Every displaced Xinjiang child taken in by the district relief stations is gathered together into our center. But at present, there are no such displaced Xinjiang children in our center for we have just sent some back home," said Zhou Zheng, head of the Shanghai Relief Management Center.

The undertaking is a cooperative effort, said Ren Chiyue, deputy director of the Social Welfare Department of Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau. "With the combined efforts of local police, relief stations and the urban management office, a special team was established to search for wandering Xinjiang children. More than 20,000 volunteers have been looking for them in scattered residential communities," Ren said.

"Some of these children do not speak very fluent Mandarin Chinese. Therefore, we have a Uygur interpreter working with us," Zhou said. "It helps to break the ice to have a person speaking their language.

"Once we have obtained basic information from these children, we try our best to reach their parents, but the process can be very time-consuming. The children might have given inadequate or even wrong information. Communication in the remote villages can be very poor. We may have to call more than 40 times to finally make sure of the accurate address," Zhou said.

"After that, we will escort these children home, together with the officials from Xinjiang, as soon as possible."

Crime crackdown

Wang Changlun, deputy director of Beijing Relief Management Center, said that like any homeless children, those from Xinjiang must be helped because once they have drifted into criminal activity it is more difficult for them to resume a normal life. Most of the vagrant children in the capital are from Henan, Anhui and Xinjiang.

Help will be waiting for the children once they return home.

Xinjiang plans to spend 50 million yuan ($7.68 million) this year on a training center for vagrant children. Minors who are mentally healthy and willing to learn can receive free education and training, the relief office said in a prepared statement.

"We will step up cooperation with technical schools in Xinjiang in the hopes that these youngsters can continue their education later on," it said.

Meanwhile, police departments across the country are cracking down on those who kidnap Xinjiang children and push them into crime, Zhang Xinfeng, vice-minister of public security, said on Sunday.

Since May 1, more than 70 people have been arrested on charges of kidnapping Xinjiang children and forcing them into such activities as theft, robbery and drug dealing. And 52 children have been rescued.