BEIJING - Parents should be temporarily deprived of their custody rights if they are found renting out their children to beg or perform on the streets, a leading activist against child begging said.

Yu Jianrong, an initiator for an ongoing campaign to crack down on child begging, made the suggestion following reports that the legal guardians of seven children rented them out to perform acrobatics on the streets in South China's Hainan province.

"Children cannot be used as tools to make profit, so I think if their parents or guardians break this rule then they should be punished," Yu told China Daily on Monday.