Situation of China’s Left-Behind Children Revealed

Situation of China’s Left-Behind Children Revealed
Jun 23, 2015 By eChinacities.com

A white paper on China’s left-behind children has been published, pointing out the destitute situation of 61 million such children in China. The most startling fact listed by the paper was that there are nearly 10 million left-behind children that don’t get to see their parents for an entire year, including during Spring Festival; whereas 2.6 million of the most unfortunate children don’t even receive a single phone call from their parents even once a year. On a slightly brighter note, 15 million left-behind children talk to their parents over the phone once every three months.

The white paper included a survey that assessed the psychological situation of over 2,000 left-behind children in six provinces, finding that simple activities like reading and playing can help mend their complicated and confused hearts.

Left-behind children are children in rural china that are left at home for a long time by their parents who migrate to cities in search of work. The topic received a significant amount of attention in the Chinese media after four left-behind children shocked the country when they committed suicide by drinking pesticide.

Source: news.qq.com

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Keywords: China’s left-behind children China’s children left behind

5 Comments

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Guest2301262

How a culture treats, educates its pillars of the future is indicative of how evolved that culture is. None of the following, neglecting, abusing, torturing, traumatizing, spoiling are things any evolved culture would do to their young (or anyone for that matter). I will leave readers who are living, or had lived in PRC to decide how evolved this 'culture' is.

Jun 24, 2015 11:57 Report Abuse

mike695ca

I think to that extent it a purely chinese thing but many countries do it as well. A huge number of the filipino and Indonesian workers in HK have children at home with the grandparents. Thailand as well. I feel conflicted about it. Id like to sit on my high horse and say i would never do that to my child and Chinese are cold callous people but on the other hand i sure havent experienced any sort of poverty so who knows? What i dont understand is the millions of kids that cant get a phone call. I know these people have phones. Even the poorest. It certainly adds an element of callousness to the story for sure.

Jun 24, 2015 00:18 Report Abuse

Guest2781358

It's pretty common in South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique, rural dads leave the kids with the grandparents to work mines and rural moms go to South Africa to work as domestic workers.......Actually most middle class Chinese do this except in their situation the grandparents live in their apartment and they see their kids after work........Same for Indians, rural ones leave the kids in the village, middle class ones keep the grandparents in their flat.

Jun 24, 2015 05:57 Report Abuse