Zhou, a native of Yilong in Nanchong City, Sichuan Province, first started getting into trouble at the age of 12.

"When I was young, my parents always quarreled. When I was six, my mom could not tolerate any more and just disappeared. I was left to my father, my grandpa and great grandpa," says Zhou, now 16.

Her father, a carpenter, quarreled often with his own father, and paid little attention to Zhou, his only child.

"I hated my father after mom left. I didn't want to talk to him or stay at home. I dropped out of school at the age of 12, and left home 12 times to look for my mom. I traveled to Shaanxi and Shanghai, but I had to give up and go home after I realized I could never find her," says Zhou.

Before going home, Zhou called her father from the bus station of Guangyuan, in Sichuan, and they argued so fiercely that the father threatened to come and give his daughter a good beating.

Zhou went into hiding from her father and was later hired to sell alcoholic drinks in downtown Guangyuan, soon becoming an alcoholic herself.

While there, she became friends with a man in his 20s from Xinjiang who seemed to be always ready to treat Zhou and seven other minors to free trips around the country. Zhou even traveled to Myanmar on a fake ID card.

On the trips, Zhou said the Xinjiang boss gave the youngsters whatever they wanted. However in June 2006, Zhou left the Xinjiang boss's grip and went south to find a job as a bartender in Guangdong Province.

"One day I received a phone call from the Xinjiang man who promised me one more free trip to Yunnan. I was reluctant, but the man said I spent a lot of his money and insist on me repaying him."

The man laid out conditions to settle the debt: the girl was to act on the man's instructions and to carry something for him.

Zhou and the Xinjiang boss met in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, on November 25, 2006.

"I was suspicious, but I went with an older girl to Kunming on December1 and went down to Ruili to fetch the items, which were loosely wrapped in black plastic bags, from a trader from Xinjiang the next day," says Zhou.

"We intended to take a bus back to Kunming, but we were arrested at a checkpoint inside Baoshan late on December 3."

The black plastic bags were found to hold 140 grams of herion. Both girls were convicted of drug trafficking in April and Zhou was sentenced to ten years in prison.

The Xinjiang boss is still at large.

"From my arrest to conviction, I didn't shed a tear, but when I received a letter from my father in April, I cried bitterly," said Zhou.

In the letter, Zhou's father told her of her grandfather's and great grandfather's deaths in 2004 and 2005 and asked her to behave at the reformatory in order to get lenient treatment.

Zhou is one of the many vulnerable minors in China who are preyed on by drugs traffickers. In China, if convicted, an adult who is found carrying 50 grams of heroin will receive the death sentence.

Sitting next to the Golden Drug Triangle in Southeast Asia, Yunnan has become a hub for the transport of narcotics.

Li Zhilei, a spokesman for Yunnan Provincial Reformatory for Minors, in Anning on the outskirts of Kunming, has heard all the tales of defenseless children who end up behind bars for carrying drugs.

Li reckons that ignorance, poor education and mixing with bad company can join poor parenting on the list of factors involved.

He says 80 percent of the inmates at the center are convicted of drugs crimes, and most of them come from rural areas.

Li cites "Ma Mengmeng", a pseudonym for a 17-year-old girl from rural Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and "Liu Lili", a girl from rural Henan province, both of whom are inmates at the center.

Ma, who has five siblings, left school after her father eloped with his mistress and had to work in cities from the age of 13.

Life would have otherwise been peaceful had she never met a woman named He Jing and her boyfriend.

"I was upset for quite some time because of my family problems and even quit my job. He consoled me and promised to travel with me," says Ma.

On October5, 2006, He, in her 30s, and her boyfriend presented Ma with an air ticket from Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia, to Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province. They took Ma to the airport in Yinchuan the next day and suddenly left with a promise to meet her in Yunnan two days later.

Ma's journey ended with a meeting with a friend of He's surnamed Li, who at first pretended to ask Ma to take He some "precious" medicine, but later told her it was heroin. Li threatened to kill Ma if she refused.

Li on October 8 hired two other women who inserted the 170 grams of heroin in Ma and rented a car to take her to the airport.

"The two women disappeared before I was about to go through the security check and I was caught after I passed through the security door," said Ma, who was forced to produce 170 grams of heroin the next day.

She was convicted on March 19 and was sentenced to three years in jail.

He and her boyfriend are still at large.

Liu Lili, 21, from rural Henan, was sent to the reformatory at the age of 17 because she was simply "a victim of drug abuse ignorance".

"My parents divorced when I was young and I was taught at school to study hard and be good with high exam scores," says Liu. "The school never organized activities to improve awareness on drug abuse or illegal drug trafficking."

Liu left school after she failed the national college entrance exam in 2002 and found a temporary job in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan, where she got to know a man from Anhui, east China.

The Anhui man was eager to please Liu. On January 15, 2003, the Lantern Festival, the man phoned Liu to invite her and five other girls to tour Yunnan. The girls, unaware of what was ahead, took a train to Kunming, met the man on the way and ended up in Myanmar.

"We stayed in Myanmar for four days and the Anhui boss bought each of us a pair of thick-heeled shoes, but gave us the shoes the day after," Liu says.

The girls were ordered to return to China in pairs too. Liu and her companion surnamed Yang were arrested in a hotel in Jinghong City in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, after the girls ahead them informed the police.

Police found 718 grams of heroin hidden in the heels of Liu's shoes. She was sentenced to 14 years after being convicted of drug trafficking in October 2003, while Yang, then 19, was sentenced to death, but with a reprieve.