China's Stolen Children

Through the personal stories of several men, women and children whose lives are impacted by the stolen-child black market in China, China's Stolen Children brings viewers face-to-face with a crisis brought on by the controversial one-child policy, implemented in 1979 to slow the country's explosive population growth. As narrator Ben Kingsley explains, "The Chinese government doesn't want the outside world to know about the crisis facing China's children, so this film had to be made entirely undercover. The film crew posed as tourists, moved hotels every three days, and changed SIM cards after every phone call." Remarkably, the subjects all agreed to appear on-camera, although several interviews are held in darkened cars or out-of-the-way locations to avoid detection. The result is a harrowing look at an illegal but largely uncontrollable practice that has reached epidemic proportions.



The film is a powerful indictment of the unforeseen impact of the world's largest experiment in social engineering. One man, Detective Zhu, works full-time to locate missing children, with modest success. His latest case involves Chen Jie, a boy kidnapped at 5 while under his grandmother's care (his heartbroken parents hire Zhu to track him down). Also profiled are Wang Li, a trafficker who once sold his own son; Jong Jang, one of the lucky few stolen children to be rescued; and Way Ling, a mother-to-be who, at 19, is too young to be legally married, and who now faces a dilemma: whether to pay exorbitant fines to keep a baby born without identity or rights, or sell it through a broker like Wang Li. While thousands of heart-wrenching tales like these unfold each year, Zhu laments that authorities seem more concerned with keeping the crisis quiet than tracking down stolen sons and daughters.

PART ONE

Watch China's Stolen Children [Part 1] in Educational | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

PART TWO

Watch China's Stolen Children [Part 2] in Educational | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

PART THREE

Watch China's Stolen Children [Part 3] in Educational | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Legal abortions are commonplace for Chinese families in the one-child era. Moreover, with ultrasound machines allowing parents to determine gender at 4-5 months, many first-time pregnancies are aborted if the fetus is female. This selective (and illegal) practice is the result of China's traditional preference for sons; here and in other Asian cultures, brides migrate to husbands' families, leaving their own parents to fend for themselves in old age. Because of this, parents covet male babies. In the one-child era, as many as 40 million baby girls have been selectively aborted - creating a gender gap that has left millions of men with little hope of finding wives. And while the black market for male children remains robust, there is a growing demand for girls as well.