Officials in southern China have launched a campaign to sterilise nearly 10,000 people as part of a crackdown on parents who violate family-planning rules, state media reported.

Family planning authorities in Puning, a city in the southern province of Guangdong, have detained more than 1,300 people in the drive, the Nanfang Countryside Daily said.

Those detained included parents who refused to undergo the surgical procedure and their "relatives", the report said.

They were being held in local government buildings and lectured on family planning rules, it said.

China's family planning policy generally limits families to one child, with some exceptions for rural farmers, ethnic minorities and other groups.

"It's not uncommon for family planning authorities to adopt some tough tactics," an employee at the Puning Population and Family Bureau was quoted as saying in the English-language Global Times newspaper.

The 20-day campaign launched last week is targeting 9,559 people considered the "most severe violators of the family planning policy in Puning", the Global Times said.

So far half the couples targeted had consented to sterilisation, the paper said.

Huang Ruifeng, a father of three, said he was contacted by a local official ordering him or his wife to have the surgical procedure, the Nanfang newspaper said.

Mr Huang refused, claiming he was too busy. Later his father was taken away.

Authorities said they were using "extraordinary measures" to encourage couples to undergo sterilisation, such as refusing to provide the children proper registration documents.

The move effectively denies the children access to public services such as health insurance and free schooling.

The Nanfang Countryside Daily is part of the Nanfang publishing group, which is known for its investigative articles and other reporting that often pushes the boundaries of what is allowed by the ruling Communist Party's censors.

- AFP