BEIJING - China has stepped up efforts in the current "people's war" against infant-smuggling crimes, while starting to cooperate with neighboring countries and international organizations in this field, according to a spokesman of the Ministry of Public Security.

This year, Chinese police have uncovered two major child-trafficking cases, freed 104 children, and arrested hundreds of smugglers.

The ministry detected one of the cases in collaboration with Vietnamese police under a transnational anti-infant-smuggling operation in the Mekong sub-region, the official told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on Monday.

Since 2009, when China signed a United Nations pact on fighting human-trafficking crimes, the country has cooperated with the international community by signing anti-human-trafficking pacts with Vietnam and Myanmar and cooperating with international organizations on the issue.

The official said that it is still very difficult for China to fight infant-trafficking activities due to the fact that smugglers are elusive, the number of people involved in smuggling children is vast, and it is difficult to identify smugglers.

In addition, traditionally, many Chinese, rural people in particular, believe that there must be a child in a family. Therefore, some villagers who do not have a child seek to buy one.

Human-smugglers have targeted rural transients working in cities, who are busy earning money and sometimes don't have time to care for their children. This has made these transient families the targets of traffickers.

On June 1, the ministry ordered local police to spend six months to collect DNA information from all children whose origin appears suspicious.

Furthermore, the police have asked for assistance from people in all circles of society to fight child-trafficking. People have responded enthusiastically, as many have organized their own teams to combat infant smugglers, according to the official.