Motherland: In Search of Missing Girlhoods

Early in September 1996, two girls were born eight days apart in China's eastern province of Jiangsu. Each daughter was abandoned a day or so after her birth in a rural town about 25 kilometers from the city of Changzhou. On September 3, the first of these two girls was found in Xixiashu Town. Those who found her said she was one day old. Then, 10 days later, this other girl baby was found in Xiaxi Town. Three days old, those who found her estimated. But neither the date nor location of the two girls' births, nor the identity of their parents, is known, since it was strangers that found them after the babies had been left on their own.