By Kelsey Cheng For Mailonline. Police in central China have arrested a human trafficker after she was caught abducting a three-year-old girl in broad daylight.
Several minutes later, the woman was seen using a toy to lure the little girl away from her friends before calmly carrying her away. The woman was seen using a toy to lure the little girl away from her friends before calmly carrying her away at a shop in Pingdingshan, Henan province at about 3pm on Friday. The girl's father reported the incident to police after he couldn't find his daughter anywhere. The girl's father reported the incident to Yexian county police after he couldn't find his daughter anywhere, according to City Report.
Chilling surveillance footage shows the female suspect right observing several children playing together unattended at the shop before approaching the three-year-old girl.
Police immediately searched the area and finally arrested the woman two hours later near the entrance of a highway. The girl has been rescued and returned to her parents. She is not injured in the incident, according to the report. Around , boys and girls are reported to be missing every year in China. Child abduction is a serious problem in China, especially in rural areas. One major cause is that the Chinese families prefer sons to daughters, resulting in them buying baby boys.
In addition, a severe gender gap - a result of four decades of one-child policy - has made it hard for Chinese men to find wives. Therefore, teenager girls are sometimes kidnapped and sold as child brides. Child abduction remains a sensitive topic to the Chinese authorities. No official figures have been released on how many children are kidnapped in China every year.
