BEIJING -- China will prioritize its efforts to send wandering children from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region back home in its national campaign against abduction, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA).

At a work conference on helping abducted people on Wednesday, the ministry ordered local civil affairs agencies across the country to overcome difficulties to do a good job in helping return wandering Xinjiang children to home.

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Vice Minister of Civil Affairs Dou Yupei said at the conference it is "very important" for local civil affairs authorities to make special arrangements for rescued children and take good care of them due to their special ethnic custom and languages.

Children from Xinjiang are sometimes found roaming the streets in cities across the country, some coerced to beg or steal.

In late April, the government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region promised to bring wandering children back home and send them back to school.

The Ministry of Public Security also ordered the nation's police to launch a crack-down on kidnapping, coercing and organizing children from Xinjiang to beg and steal.