Police across the country will treat all cases of missing children and women more seriously and set up separate special investigation teams for each of the cases in the latest bid to curb human trafficking, the Ministry of Public Security has announced.

"This is the first time the ministry has made clear such a mechanism," Chen Shiqu, chief of the ministry's anti-trafficking office, told China Daily on July 20.

The move, which follows a nine-month campaign against human trafficking, aims to provide more manpower and resources for cases involving missing children and women. During the nine-month campaign that kicked off last April, the country's police rescued a total of 14,717 children and women nationwide.