Dad forces naked daughter to beg

A young girl, who was pictured naked, smoking a cigarette and begging on the streets of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, has been sent back to her hometown with her father, local police confirmed Thursday.

Police in their hometown in Sihong county, Jiangsu Province, told the Global Times on Thursday that the two arrived home Wednesday evening.

The picture was posted on Tuesday by a Sina Weibo user, with the caption "There are no relatives around her. Repost and see if she is abducted."

Residents in Nanjing reported seeing the girl begging along Zhongyang Lu for several days, often naked and alone, although sometimes she was accompanied by her father.

A shop assistant, surnamed Wang, said the pair had hung around in front of her shop for about a week and the girl rarely wore clothes.

"A middle-aged passerby once asked the girl to put her clothes on, but her father refused. It wasn't until later when the crowd gathered that the girl put the pants on," Wang said, adding that she had also seen the girl smoking.

An officer, surnamed An, from Nanjing Public Security Bureau, said they were called to check on a "suspected abducted girl" on Wednesday and they immediately sent both of them back to Sihong to check the girl's identity.

"She's around 6 or 7, and can't identify herself. We can't find any information in our system either," said An.

The father is mentally disabled and the two have been wandering for a long time after the mother ran away and left the family in financial troubles.

"His village committee tried to help him get subsistence allowances, but failed because he isn't in the village most of the time," said An. "I think he cares for his daughter. He said they won't sleep on the street in case his daughter is stolen."

However, according to the Nanjing-based Modern Express, the father, who also has a son, begs because he can make more money, and can get more if his daughter is naked. She has earned over 600 yuan ($98) while in Nanjing.

"I've lived like this for years. I'd rather beg for money than farm, which is too tiring," he told the paper.

Web users have questioned why nothing more is being done to aid the child, and if the father should forego custody.

Ma Zuowei, secretary general of Nanjing Loving Home, an NGO that offers care to poor and orphaned children, said that parents should forfeit their rights to custody in such cases, but there are legal obstacles.

"NGOs like us can't intervene and rescue the abused or neglected children because only their parents have legal custody," Ma said, adding that while there is a provision to cancel parental custody in China's Law on the Protection of Minors, there is no concrete criteria to enforce it.