Video shows woman in China keeping in her son locked in a tiny cage so she can watch over him while she works

• A clip of a boy shut inside a cage on a metal pushcart was circulated on China's Twitter-like Weibo.
• The child's mother said she locked him in the cart for eight hours a day while she worked.

A video clip showing a young boy kept in a cage on a pushcart has been widely circulated over China's Twitter-like Weibo platform.

The 12-second clip shows the boy reaching through the grilles of the cage for the person who is filming him.

In the footage, a sign appears to obscure the cage from passersby. The sign indicates that the pushcart operator — who is the child's mother — sells flavored iced jelly, a type of dessert.

In an interview with Chinese online media outlet Wanxiang News, the unnamed mother from Tongren City in the southwestern province of Guizhou said that she had no choice but to bring her two-year-old to work.

The woman told Wanxiang News that her family was poor and that she could not afford childcare. She said she also needed a way to make sure her child didn't run around and get into trouble when she wasn't paying attention — hence, the need for a cage.

Speaking to the online Chinese media outlet Xi'an Broadcast, the woman said that she worked for around eight hours a day.

"We don't have money. Every time it comes to the time to buy milk powder, we don't have cash. We eat one meal and there's no money left for the next," the woman told the outlet.

She added that the child could not be left with his father because he "did not care" and spent all his time playing games online, per the outlet.

Per Xi'an Broadcast, the woman said: "I try to let him out when there aren't customers around. I know my child is suffering so much."

Last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping claimed that China had eliminated extreme poverty, saying his government had lifted "all 98.99 million people" in poor rural areas out of poverty.

In the same year, China's government also encouraged couples to have more children, enacting a landmark policy shift to allow people to have up to three children. However, many couples in China say they cannot afford to start families, partly due to the high cost of raising children.