Behind China’s roaring economic growth, millions of children suffer rampant abuse and neglect - China’s Left-Behind Children
Peter Terpstra
2009-12-08
Behind China’s roaring economic growth, millions of children suffer rampant
abuse and neglect.
HONG KONG—Millions of children are left behind in poorer regions of China as
their parents work elsewhere, leaving them vulnerable to mental health
problems, sexual abuse, and poor grades in school, a recent report said.
“Left-behind children are more likely to be victims of crime, and a
significantly higher proportion suffers from psychological and behavioral
problems caused by long-term separation from their parents,” the Hong Kong-
based China Labor Bulletin (CLB) said in a recent report.
The CLB called for radical reform of China’s social services, including the
hukou, or household registration system that links rights to education, health
care, and social assistance to a person’s hometown, denying them to the
children of migrants in richer cities.
Blast, abuse cited
In a statement, the group cited an explosion at an illegal firecracker
workshop in Guangxi on Nov. 12, which killed at least one child and injured a
dozen others.
“All the victims were ‘left-behind children’ whose parents were working in
factories hundreds of kilometers away in neighboring Guangdong,” it said.
The statement added that the tragedy highlighted not only the problem of child
labor but also the vulnerability of left-behind children to abuse and
exploitation.
It said a recent survey in Zhechuan county, in China’s central province of
Henan, showed that 34 percent of the 62 rapes in the county involved left-
behind children.
“Most of the victims were aged only between five and 12 years old, while the
offenders were usually acquaintances or neighbors aged over 50,” it said.
Key areas
According to recent government-backed surveys, 20 percent of children in the
eastern province of Anhui have been left behind, either alone or taken care of
by other family members.
The study identified five key areas of development in which such children lost
out: they lacked emotional support, practical assistance, the care of others,
academic guidance, and protection from crime.
Most of the children in the study said that they barely got the chance to talk
to their parents, hardly spent any time with them, and that no one paid
attention to the emotional impact on them.
‘We should show concern’
More than 32 percent of “left-behind children” reported mental health problems
including emotional isolation, loneliness, mood instability, rebelliousness,
and lack of self-confidence.
“We should feel sorry for these kids,” Anhui-based social activist Wang
Zhaojun said.
“The whole of society, especially the government, should show some concern for
their plight and give them some love and care.”
“The problems in the government-backed report all exist,” Wang said.
“All of them: the problems of food, accommodation, emotional and physical
well-being, education and upbringing, they are all there.”
Girls in this situation were particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse and rape,
the report said.
Dire need
More than 66 percent of criminal cases brought to the Huaibei Municipal
People’s Court in 2007 involved left-behind children.
“Some of these children die in accidents, and some of the girls are even
subjected to sexual abuse,” said Liao Tianqi, deputy editor of the U.S.-based
online magazine China Observer.
“I think this is a problem that everyone should be concerned about. There is a
dire need for a plan of action to address this intractable problem.”
On top of such problems, left-behind children are often forced by
circumstances into caring for elderly relatives, instead of getting the care
and attention they need to develop.
In the wake of the Guangxi explosion, Chinese labor activist Liu Nianchun
called on the government to make new laws to protect left-behind children.
“There should be legislation on this matter, for example, dictating that
migrant workers have to take their children with them when they go to the
cities to work,” Liu said.
“Once there, they should enjoy the same treatment as the urban children get.
This would likely make them think about taking the kids with them, and we
would see a lot less of this sort of thing.”
CLB said the only way to ensure equal treatment for all children was the
eventual abolition of the hukou system.
In the meantime, local governments should be made responsible for the welfare
of all children resident in their area, regardless of origin.
“The government has sponsored a program of stand-in parents to care for left-
behind children, but all too often they are recruited under a quota system and
lack the time or ability to do what is needed,” it said.
Migrants suffer too
CLB said that children taken to big cities alongside migrant worker parents
often showed the same emotional problems as those left behind, while their
access to health care and education was prohibitively expensive, under
discriminatory rules.
“Migrant children ... and their mothers suffer from noticeably higher levels
of disease and preventable death simply because they do not have the same
level of access to health care as their local neighbors,” it said.
Migrant children were forced to pay up to three times as much as local
children to receive the same education or alternatively study at inferior-
quality migrant schools, it added.
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/chinaschildren-12082009135047.html