CHANGSHA, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- The photograph shows the distorted figure of a crippled child thrusting a red plastic bucket at passersby as he begs on the street.
"I called the police 11 times before an officer answered, but he told me that they would not do anything as there are so many street beggars," wrote "VVweifenglinlin" in a microblog posting above the photo.
"The police finally came to take the child to safety after I called again and threatened to report his dereliction of duty," said the posting from Emeishan City in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
The image was one of about 250 photos and videos posted Sunday on two Chinese microblogs established in a campaign to rescue children who have been forced into begging, many of them stolen from their families.
Microblog creator Yu Jianrong, of the Rural Development Institute of China Academy of Social Sciences, hit upon the idea after he received a letter from the distraught parents of an abducted child.
A netizen happened to take a photo of the 6-year-old begging in Xiamen City, Fujian Province, early this month. The child was abducted from Quanzhou City, also in Fujian in 2009.
"This is utterly devoid of conscience!" Yu wrote in a posting on his own microblog, which has about 320,000 followers, calling netizens to help locate the child.
