Kidnapped woman reunited with her family after two decades

After being kidnapped at age seven and given to foster parents, Liu Yan was beaten and locked up to prevent her running away to find her biological mom and dad.

But the Chinese woman – known by her nickname, Xiaoyan (“Little Swallow”) – never gave up the search for her family, who are from Xingren County in China.

In March, Liu – who’s now 28 – gave a blood sample and what little details she could remember of her past to China’s largest missing-persons NGO.

After a long search volunteers, with the help of the police, were able to track down her relatives.

DNA samples taken from Liu’s now-divorced mom and dad, Wang Yongui and Liu Wenbin, confirmed that they’re her birth parents.

After hearing the amazing news the long-lost relatives arranged a reunion in their hometown. Hundreds of people travelled to the small village to witness the special occasion.

Liu and her mom shed tears as they were reunited.

Liu, who now works in Zhejiang province in eastern China, recounted the day back in 1997 when as a seven-year-old she was snatched while on her way to school.

A woman dragged her on a pedicab and fed her something that made her “fall asleep”.

When she woke up she was in Nayong, another county in Guizhou, where she was given to a foster family who renamed her Wang Xue.

Liu was old enough to remember her nickname, Little Swallow, as well as the names of her grandfather, Wang Kaiming, and uncle, Wang Yonghong.

She recalled having a little brother and that both her parents were migrant workers.

Liu said she once heard that people were looking for her in Nayong, but her foster parents prevented her from leaving the house by beating her and locking her up.

“Being locked up, beaten and scared was common,” she recalled.

The next day Liu’s foster family sent her away to live with relatives so she wouldn’t be found. She remained there for two years.

Meanwhile her stunned birth parents had spent so much time, money and energy looking for their missing daughter that they ended up getting divorced.

Her father moved to the city of Zunyi in Guizhou, while her mother moved to northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region for work.

Her grandfather passed away just weeks before the family reunion, which left Liu wanting to “come back home immediately”, she said.

It’s not clear whether her abductor was ever found – or whether her foster family will be punished.

Source: Magazine Features

Pictures: CATERS/WWW.MAGAZINEFEATURES.CO.ZA