The country's civil affairs authorities have helped on average 150,000 vagrant children every year since 2003. Experts estimate that there are more than 1 million street children in China.

Li said the number of street children is declining.

Rescue centers for the homeless helped around 160,000 vagrant children in 2012. This represented a decline of 20,000 compared to 2011.

"It is not an easy job to send vagrant children home," said Zhang Ling, director of the Yunnan Provincial Rescue Center for Homeless People.

"Some children are too young to remember their identities or family information, and others refuse to tell our staff even if they know their home address because they don't want to be sent home."

There are complicated reasons behind children living or working on the street, but "80 percent or even 90 percent of children living on the street are there because of family issues", Zhang said. Divorce, domestic violence and abusive discipline often force a child to leave home, she added.

"If their family situation is the same after we send these children back, they will run away again," she said.

Chen Qiangping, 8, has lived in the Street Children Help and Protection Center in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, with his 13-year-old brother for six months.

The two brothers used to live with their divorced father.

He was a Fagin-type character who demanded 10 yuan ($1.60) each day from them.

If they failed they would be beaten. One day, their father disappeared and the brothers started living on the streets until a passer-by sent them to the center.

"Life is OK here, but a little boring," Chen said, adding that his favorite activity is playing basketball with friends in the center, currently home to seven vagrant children.

Guo Anfei contributed to this story.

Children play at a orphanage in Jinjiang, Fujian province, Jan 22. The 23 children were abducted by kidnappers to sell until they rescued by police in 2005, but they have been unable to trace their parents. [Photo/Xinhua]