A new guideline, signed by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and released by the State Council on Sunday, is expected to benefit China’s 60 million plus left-behind children who are mostly offspring of migrant workers with jobs in cities.
The rules define the different responsibilities of parents, society and government towards these children. Villages and cities are expected to be well-informed of the situation of the left-behind children who fall within their jurisdiction. The local governments are required to ensure that these kids are properly taken care of.
However, the guidelines stress taking care of the children is still the main responsibility of their parents. The obligation of schools is to help those children live safely and study. To help governments take care of these children, it could tap volunteer groups and charitable organizations that would make available professional services, a reporting system, assessment, intervention and assistance, reported Global Times.
The guideline also targets to decrease the number of left-behind children, often under the care of grandparents or older relatives while their parents are in the city working. Better opportunities in the rural area has resulted in a growing number of migrant workers returning home for good, especially during the Lunar New Year holiday.
Because of the lack of parental care, a number of tragedies has been reported involving left-behind children such as the suicide in 2015 of four children in Guizhou Province. In June 2015, the four children drank pesticide after they were abandoned by their parents who are migrant workers. The four – a boy and three girls aged five to 14 – were found at their house outside Bijie City but left a suicide note, reported The Guardian.