In China, a popular social network is asking people to help locate lost kids

Photo credit: L@mie.

Chinese dating app Momo is trying something very different with the launch of its Momo Shouhu initiative, which enables users of the app to identify missing children in their local area.

For the missing person finder service (which translates as “Momo Guardian”), Momo has partnered with local charity group Baobeihuijia, Xinhua reports. The tech company hopes the new service will help locate children in the crucial 72-hour period after they’ve disappeared.

China has a huge problem with missing children. Often, they’re kidnapped and sold by organized rings. Some kids will end up with “adoptive” parents who really wanted a son; others end up sold into labor or gangs of beggars who use children to elicit sympathy and bring in more money. In the last few years, several domestic and international media outlets have devoted significant coverage to the plight of China’s kidnapped children.

Based on the number of children that get reported as missing, estimates suggest that between 10,000 to as many as 70,000 children are lost, or feared kidnapped, every year in China. Because children cannot be reported as missing to the police until 24 hours have passed, a kidnapping gang might easily have moved the children across the country by that time. Rarely do reluctant local authorities take an interest in a particular case.

Momo’s missing child finder feature – which will be seen by Momo’s 78 million monthly active users – enables people to provide vital information instantly, assisting parents at the time of the reported incident.

Homecoming

Baobeihuijia which roughly translates as “returning children to their homes,” is a volunteer organization that has helped more than a 1,000 families to reunite with their loved ones since its establishment in 2007.

Momo Guardian makes use of Momo’s local activity feed which features news about events, people and activities present in a 10 to 15 kilometer radius. Momo places recent disappearances at the top of local feeds with a photo and basic personal information to assist locals with identification.

Momo’s PR director Sun Yang explained to Tech in Asia the relationship between Momo Guardian and its broader vision. “Momo’s vision is to build an open, trustworthy, and safe mobile social network with mobile internet technology. In this platform, when someone is in trouble and needs help, many people will provide their kindness and support. Everyone can get involved and benefit. Momo Guardian is just one example of this.”

This civic-minded feature is the latest way in which Momo has evolved from a mere dating app into a broader social network for China’s youngsters. Sun says Momo recently added a way for Momo’s members to browse their location-specific interests – football teams, movies, sports cars – through the local feeds of different parts of the world.