Moment Runaway Teen Reunited With Mum 28 Years Later

These images show a woman’s emotional reunion with her mother who she had not seen for nearly three decades after running away from home as a teenager.

Yan Dongai, now 46, found work as a waitress but says she was later kidnapped twice and trafficked as a bride.

The native of Andu Township in the city of Weihui, which is in Central China’s Henan Province, ran away from home without telling her family in 1991 at the age of 17.

Credit: AsiaWire
Yan Dongai (L) reunited with her mother after 28 years

“We had an argument. I left without saying a word,” the now mum-of-one recalled.

She wound up in a restaurant working as a waitress, but she says she was whisked away to East China’s Jiangsu Province and sold as a young bride by traffickers just two months later.

Yan said she endured domestic violence and was trafficked a second time to the neighbouring province of Anhui, where she suffered a similar fate – being sold off to a second husband.

Credit: AsiaWire
Yan Dongai (L) reunited with her mother after 28 years

She is illiterate and could not recall her family’s rural address, but she finally mustered the courage to escape with her young daughter seven years later, returning to her native province of Henan by bus.

Yan’s sister in-law recalled: “She arrived in Henan and was kicked off the bus because she had no money.

“Later she met my brother, who took her in.”

Her third husband, Ren Qingguo, and his relatives took it upon themselves to help her find her long-lost family after she revealed that she missed her parents and sister, and desperately wanted to see them again.

Credit: AsiaWire
Yan Dongai (L) reunited with her mother after 28 years

They registered her name and any details she could remember on the website Baobei Huijia (Baby Back Home), which is a not-for-profit organisation responsible for reuniting more than 2,000 lost or trafficked children with their parents.

The database turned up a result on 15th August, and, with the help of a police DNA database, volunteers were able to confirm a match and send Yan back to her hometown.

For the first time in 28 years, Yan and her mother, Li Gailan, 75, met and hugged in a tearful reunion.

Credit: AsiaWire
Yan Dongai (L) reunited with her mother after 28 years

She was sadly unable to see her father again, with her dad having passed away eight years earlier.

Yan, who lives in Henan’s Gushi County with her husband’s family, revealed they have already made plans to visit her mother again during Chinese New Year.

Henan authorities told local media they had not given up searching for the suspects involved in her trafficking all those years ago.


To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below.
Story By: John FengSub-EditorAlex Cope, Agency: Asia Wire Report


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