Li Yang (alias), 25, of Beijing, likes to explore everything around her. Sometimes, she steps outside without telling her parents, and they get worried because she is mentally ill.

Mentally disabled workers have a meal break Saturday inside an illegal factory in Xinjiang.

Li is not socially active and her activities are limited since she has the mental capacity of a 5-year-old child.

Although she is safe, her parents have been afraid for her safety ever since news broke about a factory owner that forced 12 mentally disabled people to work long hours without pay, safety equipment, or proper meals.

"We cannot stop thinking that our daughter gets abducted when she is wondering the streets, the image that she was forced to work in a tiny factory, with messy hair and dirty clothes, kept flashing up in my mind," said Li Yang's mother.

The victims, who are mentally ill like Li Yang, were found working in inhumane conditions in a factory in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

"We are so afraid it will happen to her," Li's mother said, choking back tears. "It is such a dangerous place for mentally disabled people."

Zeng Lingquan, who founded the unlicensed Quxian Beggars Adoption Agency in Sichuan Province, reportedly sold at least 70 mentally disabled people to work illegally in Beijing, Tianjin and other cities.

It is not the first time such incidents have dominated headlines. The most shocking case occurred in 2007, when thousands of people, mostly disabled, were found in brick kilns in Henan and Shanxi provinces. They were often fed little and were beaten into compliance.

"Every time such a case occurs, they spark a series of news reports, but nothing changes," Meng Weina, the founder of Huiling Community Center for the Mentality Disabled, told the Global Times. "No policy has been changed, not even a single of-ficial has been fired over these tragedies."