Abducted, sold as a bride 40 years ago – and reunited with her family at last, thanks to her daughter’s two-decade search, and a group on WeChat

When Li Yantao found her mother had been abducted to central China and sold to her father as a bride, she set out to reunite her with her family

After 19 years trying, she achieved it with the help of social media, and learned her mother’s name. Together they travelled 1,800km to her mother’s village

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Last month, 40 years after being abducted, Dezliangz (left), a widow in Henan, central China, was reunited with her elderly parents 1,800km away in southwest China, thanks to the efforts of her own daughter, and to social media. Photo: Huang Defeng

Published: 4:15am, 17 Dec 2020Updated: 4:27pm, 18 Dec 2020

As a child, Li Yantao wondered why her mother, with her high forehead, protruding cheekbones and receding hairline, looked so different from others in their village in Henan province in central China. Her mother was often referred to as “deaf-mute” and someone who made strange noises, as she spoke a language nobody understood.

Li only found out the disturbing truth when she was 11 years old – her mother had been abducted and sold to her father as a bride, years before Li was born. Nobody knew her mother’s name or age. She would sit in front of the house, gazing blankly at the road to the east. She kept a knife under her pillow. Sometimes she cried and would say to herself that this was not her home.

Li can remember her mother once trying to run away with her and her younger sister. Feeling deeply sorry for her mother, she decided to help her return home – not knowing 19 years would pass before she could do so.

Now 30, Li has realised her childhood dream. She knows her mother is 59 years old, of the Buyei ethnic minority group and was called Dezliangz as a child.

Dezliangz and her father in their Guizhou home.

In October, Dezliangz was reunited, 40 years after her abduction, with her parents in Shazi township in Guizhou’s Qianxinan Buyei and Miao autonomous prefecture in southwest China, 1,800km (1,100 miles) away from her home in Henan.

“She was completely changed among her old folks. I have never seen her smile so much in my entire life. They talked while holding hands. My mother was like a young girl around her parents,” said Li. “My mother has had a bitter life, being abducted to a place so far from home, repeatedly trying to escape and being beaten up before marrying my father.”