High technology and stricter measures will be applied in a nationwide programme to crack down on the abduction of women and children, top police officers said yesterday in Beijing.

The special programme will begin April 1 and last until the end of July, according to Minister of Public Security Jia Chunwang.

Vice-minister of Public Security Bai Jingfu promised that more high-tech measures would be applied in tracking down abductors of people.

He Ting, a senior police officer in charge of the programme, said that nationwide computer-based databases of people traders and abducted women and children have been established.

He said information about former abductors, and data covering abducted women and children were storein these computer files, which have been sent to local police departments through web sites or on CD-roms.

A DNA database of parents whose children are abducted is also under construction, He stated.

Information on women and children suspected to be abducted will be checked with these databases.

Police statistics show that in 1999, 6,802 women and 1,662 children around the country were reported to be abducted.

In the same year, 7,660 women and 1,814 children were reported abducted and sold. Police saved 6,898 of them.

Jia Chunwang emphasized that the abduction of women and children have seriously threatened social stability and needs to bet severely dealt with.

Besides those who commit abductions or trade women and children, people who buy the victims should also be punished, He said.

China's Criminal Law stipulates that abductors or traders may be sentenced to between five and 10 years imprisonment while those who buy the women or children can be given jail terms of up to three years.

But in previous years, most people who bought the women or children were pardoned by local police, who viewed the purchasers as victims also since they had paid large sums of unrefundable money to the abductors.