China has passed a law requiring adult children to visit their elderly parents regularly or risk being sued.

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The law does not specify how frequently such visits should occur, but warns that neglect could risk court action.

Reports suggest a growing number of elderly Chinese have been abandoned or neglected by their offspring.

Chinese state media reported earlier this month that a woman in her nineties had been forced by her son to live in a pigsty for two years.

Newspapers are full of such stories, or of tales of children trying to seize their parents' assets, or of old people dying unnoticed in their homes.

The rapid pace of development in China has damaged the traditional extended family in China.