A child aims his toy gun at something as he plays in a poor neighborhood in Beijing. (Photo : Reuters)
Reacting to the most recent tragedy in Guizhou Province involving the death from poverty-related causes of the four children of two migrant workers, the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) will reexamine its established social programs and their corresponding implementation, said spokesperson Chen Rifa in a report posted at the MCA website on June 12.
Chen said that the ministry ordered the Guizhou Provincial Department of Civil Affairs to immediately assess the circumstances that led to such an unfortunate incident.
The ministry will send social workers to fortify its social programs, particularly in helping the so-called “left behind children.” The Ministry of Finance will also extend efforts to bring aid.
Xinhua News Agency said that the four children, aged 5-13, of Zhang Fangqi and Ren Xifen living in Bijie took their own lives by drinking pesticide.
It was in an apparent overwhelming despair over their abandoned state and miserable living condition. Their parents left them, got forced to quit schooling, and survived almost entirely on cornmeal.
Ren said to Xinhua that she parted ways with Zhang due to mounting marital troubles. The 32-year-old unschooled mother left the house in 2014.
When she reached Guangdong in March 2014, she phoned her family and spoke to her husband and children. It was her last conversation with them.
Zhang left the children only in March of this year. He has also never returned since.
The eldest and only son, described by Ren as “very lovable,” left a suicide note. In it he thanked his parents for their compassion, but added he and his sisters have to leave.
Some few years back in the same province, Xinhua said that two cases were reported, with only three months interval, concerning the death of children whose parents are also migrant workers.
One night in Nov 2012, it rained and the temperature dropped somewhere between 4 and 6 degrees Celsius. Five runaway boys living in the streets couldn’t stand the biting cold.
Brothers Bo (9) and Chong (13), together with their cousins Zhonghong (11), Zhongjin (12) and Zhonglin (13), decided to take shelter inside a dumpster, lit some charcoal to warm themselves and called it a night. Carbon monoxide poisoning killed them, and they most likely died in their sleep.
Almost the same thing happened to five boys aged 4-6, albeit they shared the same fate of dying.
In Feb. 2013, at a time when the parents of the five boys were away and busy preparing for an upcoming wedding, the children went inside a tobacco barn and thought of setting some hay on fire. The smoke produced by the burning hay suffocated them.
When people went to the barn, four dead bodies greeted them. The lone boy who was found still breathing was rushed to the hospital. He didn’t survive long.
Chen said that the ministry would create better social programs to continue caring for the welfare of the hapless members of society, such as poor families, abandoned children, drug addicts and prisoners.
