Nobody doubted the dead man’s identity…[who] had been disfigured in the crash…in 2009…And then, late last year, Ma Jixiang came home. Now 58, he is still unable — or unwilling — to account for his six-year absence, but his family believes he was kidnapped by human traffickers, sold to an illegal brick factory and released when he was too old and frail to work…Jixiang had no friends. A mental disability, never diagnosed or treated, made him erratic…

“The cases are extremely common,” said the director of a Beijing-based disability rights advocacy group…Human traffickers often target mentally disabled people in China, he said, especially in the countryside. They’re easy prey, he said. They can do “heavy but simple” work as well as anyone, and yet “they’re lacking in capabilities to rebel, and to escape.”…“These cases are only the tip of the iceberg,” he added. “Because in the end, there’s no well-established support system [in China] for mentally disabled people. That’s the real issue — because a lot of the disabled people, they’re physically capable of doing work, and they have the willingness to work. Yet there’s no way to match them with proper jobs.”…