Be careful of your children when in Hong Kong
UPDATE: “Continuation of this crazy post…”
I had to write this post today. It’s really a warning to other parents. You may call me paranoid or crazy, but the fact of the matter is that this is happening more and more frequently. Growing up as a Canadian in Toronto, you hear of children kidnappings, but you don’t really think it happens in your neighbour. True, the frequency isn’t as high and it’s more difficult. I asked my mother if she ever worried that her three children would get kidnapped and she gave me an incredulous look and answered “Of course not!” Ask me! Ask me! Ask me the same question and I will answer “Hell ya, I take precautions to ensure my children are safe.”
Check this out today in The Standard “Rogue Shenzhen doctor held after baby-trafficking bust“. WHAT THE HELL? It’s not uncommon to hear of kidnappings where the children end up in China. Afterall, the border is just a mere hour from the city and it’s pretty easy to get into China – especially since children’s IDs usually don’t anything like them after a few months.
Here are a few precautions I take when going out with my children. In densely packed areas, such as CWB or Central or TST, I will:
- always have both children secured to something. This means a stroller or me and not roaming by themselves holding my hand.
- always make sure I know where both children is at all times.
- never let them out of my sight, even with the helper – especially in restaurants. You often see the helpers and children outside of the restaurants because the children have gotten restless. I don’t care if my children are restless, I’ve brought books and toys, so they can stay seated and within reach.
- walk in familiar areas, no exploring with the kids.
- NOT go to China with my children. I know, it sounds like I’m a crazy mother who keeps her children in seclusion, but for starters, me and my daughter needs visas and I’m not familiar with China or fluent in Mandarin, so if anything happened, I’d be a liability to myself! Come on, they travel to other places like Tokyo and Toronto often enough, so one less trip won’t hurt.
That’s just my 2 cents today. The article caught my eye. Why take the risk? You can never be too careful in these situations, especially when your children are involved. Crazy mother.
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[...] of expatriate parents in Hong Kong. And here is a good demonstration who these things spread: http://lisatong.com/index.php/2009/0…-in-hong-kong/ Person writes a story on her blog about kids being kidnapped in HK and being smuggled to China. [...]
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This supposed company story that you tell is an old urban legend. It is simply not true. I have lived in both Hong Kong and China with my children and people like you make me laugh. How many western children have been kidnapped in China in the last 5 years? NONE! Call the American Embassy in Guangzhou if you have any concerns. China is a large country with a wide variety of places. Detroit is different from Palm Springs, as Shenzhen is different from Qingdao.
Stop posting false information.
The whole of in Causeway Bay packed with affluent and “rights-savvy” customers let you lock them in the store for goodness knows how long and nobody ever heard of this story save for now, as opposed to making front page headlines. Hmmmmm….. let me think about this one ….
The thing about urban legends is they are sparse on verifiable facts, particularly time and date – and “2 weeks ago” doesn’t count!
Well..about the shaved kid we had the same legend couple of years ago in Italy and they tryied to say that the illegal immigrants were responsible for that..here are Chinese (from mainland and not from HK).let me see the picture of the kid,let me talk to him..and then I can trust some of those legend.For those legend you can browse internet,they are collected in the web!
Furthermore..it should be common sense to don’t allow your kids to play around without you even if, reading around, you can find that HK is one of the safiest city ever!And..furthermore..there are no kidnapping in Tokyo and Toronto??mmm, not that sure about Tornonto.
Whether the above story is true or not, when our kids gone missing in the public; nothing good comes to our mind. That’s not our fault; the truth is there are many perverts hiding around corners and ready to pound when we are not careful. There were 2 kidnappings happened last week in Hong Kong, 2 girls from TST and 1 young woman from Sham Tsui Po. The news were in the Chinese newspaper, all the girls were being molested before rescued. When my daughter, who was then 4 years old, walked away from us for 1 minute in the Phunket Airport; I went beserck. My husband thinks I was over-sensitive since then; I refuse to take our daughter to China. I agreed with crazy mother; we do not have the language. Anything goes wrong, by the time the embassy people arrive, our kids have been taken miles.
Another Crazy Mother
I am inclined to think that maybe it is an urban legend. It is in fact, passed from my sister who heard it from her friend whose closer to the source. I echo the points above in that maybe or maybe not that it should be in the news, but as READERS, we should filter what we hear and read and make judgments for ourselves. I completely agree with Gabrielle that WE as parents should hold ourselves responsible at ALL COSTS and not to take anything for granted. Thank you everyone – especially those who can look at an article from both sides and make critical judgments.
There is a great urban legends site called snopes.com that says this has been going around in the US for years & years.
Oops, sorry the enter button didn’t leave a space, it just posted the comment. The site with this article is http://www.snopes.com/horrors/parental/kidnap.asp The head shaving stuff is far fetched but child molestation is a very real concern and it can take less than a minute for our child to be violated (though I am much more concerned over this when we are in the US versus HK).
Simon,
Thank you for the sharing. There are 2 things that concern me with people’s observations of these urban myths. For starters, I’m now going to see if I can go directly to the source of this hearsay and determine who/how truthful this information is. ANd secondly, molestation is a very serious concern. There was an article in HK last year about a domestic helper who was paid by a stranger to regularly allow him to molest and assault the children (2 girls) she was caring for. She would bring them down to the local play area and just hand these 2 girls over to this man for a certain time. They only discovered it when the 5 year old made a comment to her father and he followed them the day after to investigate, upon which he called police and had them both arrested.
I echo your point about this being a real concern. This is because it can happen anywhere, any place, anytime. Vigilence is vitally important for our children and teaching them to voice out concerns of this nature is equally important.
Thank you for bringin up these points and for the reference to urban myths.
Lisa
Congratulations! This has finally made the newspaper. Apple Daily today reports that because so many people had forwarded this story and because of all the negative publicity it was generating, had no choice but to call in the police over this matter.
As a result your sister’s, best friend’s colleague is now facing a possible 5 year jail term because they traced her original post from on the Chinese Baby Kingdom web forum.
Thanks Jane Doe for being so BRAVE in using a fake name and email address. If you are so passionate about this being a true or false story, why hide?
And, in all honesty – there is no legal grounds for hearsay. And as a courtesy to all those readers who are following this post – it would be nice if you could provide a link to this article. We are afterall, about giving proof – aren’t we? I challange you.
visit omy’s website (local news) dated 21 Mar 2012, there is a case happened there.
Hi I was in China one week ago and as I was shopping in Guangzhou railway station with my wife and our two children.
My daughter and son were shopping with us and a gang tried to abduct my 4 year daughter.
If I didn’t happen to see my daughter walking with a unknown chinese women she would have been gone for good.
They took her from a dress shop and I was outside the shop playing with my son and say the lady taking her towards the escalater leading to the street below.I called my daughter and she came to me and the unknown woman continued briskly without responce.
Twenty more meters and I am sure that I would have never seen my beautiful young daughter again.
So you people who say this does not happen in China are very mistaken it is a big industry in China.
Please to any parents going to China, do not take your eyes off your children because if you do they will be gone in seconds,because thats all it takes to loose your child forever.
We were lucky and if I had realised what they were doing this would have been a international insodent because I would have really hurt these people.