He took note of the families who lost children and began to contact them. By June 2003, he had been in touch with 19 parents, and discovered that some of them had lost their children from the same food market in which his shop is located.
A few of the families lived in a neighboring town. What shocked Zheng the most, however, was that some of the children were not lured away by a stranger, but rather grabbed from their parents by gangsters in broad daylight.
The parents, desperate, devastated and powerless on their own, got together to talk about their experiences and support one another. They decided to form an alliance to work together in finding lost children. The alliance became known as the “Dongguan Family Alliance of Lost Children.”
Now the group includes over 200 parents who have suffered similar misfortunes. “We have organized a number of petitions to local governments, and even in Beijing, but most cases, including mine, remain unsolved.” Zheng noted. “Almost all of the members in our alliance are migrants who live in poverty in neighboring suburban areas,” added Zheng. “They were not exposed to modern media or the Internet, so I had to lead the group, and get all their contact information the old way so that I could contact them one by one to ask them to join the alliance.”
The alliance has expanded from 19 original members to 183 in the past six years. Zheng said that the alliance is made up of people that he met during his search for his son and only represents “six towns among the 32 towns of the Dongguan area.” Zheng believes that there are more than 1000 abducted children in the area, so the parents that make up the alliance are only “the tip of the iceberg.”
The Dongguan Family Alliance of Lost Children first appeared publicly in July 2003, and has since gained the attention of the media from both Guangdong and Hong Kong. Members of the group poster cities throughout the area with information about missing children, and many parents rewarded people who have information that led to the recovery of their lost child.
In the spring of 2004, the alliance received information about the sale of children in Heyuan city, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northeast of Dongguan.
Zheng, together with a few other parents, posed as potential buyers and met with the people selling the children in Heyuan. They met with a “middleman” who showed them over a dozen pictures of children, among which, one caught Zheng’s attention. The boy in the photo was not his own son, Shalong, but it looked like Li Zihao, the lost son of another member of the alliance. When he returned to Dongguan, Zheng reported this information to the police. The police acted immediately and caught the abductors in Heyuan, and rescued 10 abducted children including Li Zihao.
“The father of Li Zihao was very lucky and he was grateful to the alliance,” Zheng recalled, as tears appeared in his eyes. “During the first few months after the child was rescued, Li took his son to visit my shop often.”