From Xinhua:
Police said 20 children who had been abducted and forced into pickpocket gangs in southern China, where some had been held as long as four years, returned home to China’s northwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Thursday.
[…]The kidnappers, who have been detained by police, confessed that they promised jobs to the children in impoverished regions in Xinjiang and took them to Guangzhou.
Instead, they trained the children how to steal and forced them to hand in 2,000 yuan (292 U.S. dollars) to 5,000 yuan a day. Those who couldn’t bring in that much faced abuse, such as cigarette burns or whippings.
