As Nanjing grapples with the problem of teenage runaways, a special hotline opened yesterday in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, to help parents communicate with their children.

Nanjing Morning Post, a local newspaper, opened the hotline (025) 84701110 since more and more teenagers today leave home, accounting for a large percentage of the disappearing children every year.

"Our job is to provide help to those parents who have difficulty talking with their kids, and prevent children from leaving home," said one of the operators of the hotline.

At least 100 cases exist of teenagers who disappeared in the city every year, and most of the missing children were girls, according to Wang Yequan, a reporter for Nanjing Morning Post who has written several stories about disappeared children.

The Internet was a factor for 70 percent of the students who left their homes. Some left home because their parents did not allow them to spend much time surfing the Internet, and others left to visit friends they met online. Moreover, some of the missing children were abducted by strangers.

The information office of Nanjing Public Security Bureau, however, did not confirm the conclusions made by Wang.

On September 10, a 15-year-old girl named Jia Daizi disappeared on her way to her school.

Jia's home is in Xuzhou, a city in the north of the province. She was studying at a dance class of Jiangsu Opera School in Nanjing.

At 18:00 PM, Jia's aunt, who lives in Nanjing, sent the girl to the bus stop and saw her getting on the bus.

Later, the school called Jia's aunt to tell her the girl did not go to school, and nobody could find her.

The aunt was worried, calling Jia's parents and then the police.

The next day, Jia's parents rushed to Nanjing, trying to find their daughter without luck.

On September 12, Jia returned home in Xuzhou from Shanghai.

The girl later told local reporters that she left home because she did not want to study dancing but her parents forced her to do so.

To make her parents see that she was not interested in dancing, Jia decided not to go to school.

She travelled to Shanghai for two days and returned home when she spent almost all of her pocket money.

(China Daily September 16, 2005)