A woman abandoned as a newborn in China has shared an emotional reunion with her birth family after 23 years, returning to her hometown alongside the Swedish couple who adopted and raised her.
A woman abandoned as a newborn in China has shared an emotional reunion with her birth family after 23 years, returning to her hometown alongside the Swedish couple who adopted and raised her. Known as Lisa in media reports, she was born in Huaiyuan county in China's Anhui province in 2003. According to mainland media, a midwife took the baby away shortly after birth with the consent of her financially struggling parents, convincing them they could not afford to raise another child.
Just four days later when the midwife allegedly abandoned the infant outside a stadium in another city, the baby, suffering from an inguinal hernia, was rescued and taken into police care before being placed in a children's welfare home. There, she was given the name Gao Jianquan, a homophone of a Chinese phrase meaning "in good health." It remains unclear whether the midwife was ever held accountable.
At the age of one, Gao was adopted by a Swedish couple, who raised her in Sweden with openness about her past. Rather than hiding her origins, they encouraged conversations about her birth family and stood firmly by her decision to search for her roots.
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Her search finally gained momentum in March this year when she registered with Baby Come Home, a Chinese non-profit organisation dedicated to reconnecting separated families. Within just two months, DNA testing successfully identified her biological relatives.
On July 25, Gao returned to Huaiyuan with her Swedish adoptive parents for a deeply emotional first meeting with the family she had not seen in 23 years.
Her biological parents welcomed her with a bilingual banner that read, "The most beautiful road in the world is the road home." After spending days learning Chinese, Gao tearfully embraced her birth mother and said, "Mum, I love you. I’m so happy to see you."
The reunion was filled with heartfelt gestures. Her birth mother gifted her a jade necklace and dressed her in a traditional red qipao, while the family presented Chinese tea and other gifts to Gao's Swedish parents and their relatives as a sign of gratitude.
Gao, who also discovered she has three biological siblings, will soon return to Sweden to continue her master's studies.
China suspended almost all international adoptions in 2024, allowing them only in limited cases involving blood relatives. Since introducing formal adoption procedures in the early 1990s, tens of thousands of Chinese orphans and abandoned children have been adopted overseas.
The country has also spent years tackling human trafficking. Official figures show cases involving trafficked women and children dropped by nearly 78 per cent in 2025 compared to their 2012 peak, though many children abducted years ago are still missing.
