Along line of people snakes down the drab grey lane that leads to the Complaints Office of the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing. Although the rest of the city is bathed in the warm sunshine of early summer, this queue is permanently in the shade, united by a common tragedy.
Each has lost a child, abducted, presumed sold and far away from home. The parents' search for their missing children has brought them to the capital to find out why the police are not doing more to reunite the families.
The silence is broken by a mother's sobs. In 1996, Luo Fen moved from rural Guizhou to work in Yunnan province; a year later she married He Kai, a man from her home town, and on August 14, 1999, they became the parents of a baby boy they named He Jin, Putonghua for 'moving forward'. The couple's choice of name reflected their improved fortunes since moving to Yunnan. In 2000, Mr He bought a minibus and started making deliveries to restaurants across the provincial capital, Kunming, while Ms Luo sold vegetables.
With a household income of about 1,500 yuan per month, the couple could afford to send their son to a nearby kindergarten. Although cheap, at 130 yuan a month, it was still out of reach of most migrant parents.
On September 24 last year, diarrhoea forced He Jin to take a day off from kindergarten. At 11am, the boy told his mother he and a neighbour's daughter would go to the public toilet, just metres away from their dilapidated house. Ms Luo was busy preparing lunch when the two four-year-olds left; she glanced up to see them disappear from sight, not thinking it would be the last time she would see her son.
When her son hadn't returned 10 minutes later, Ms Luo called for him to come home. She went out to look for him when she received no answer and bumped into the little girl returning alone.