Should parents Be Held criminally liable for Health and Safety Failures Harming their children?

A proposal appealing for harsher punishment legislation for negligent parents and guardians has provoked a long and heated online debate in china.

during the 2017 sessions of the National People’s congress and the National committee of the chinese People’s Political consultative conference (cppcc), li you and 12 other members of the cppcc National committee proposed that parents and guardians who cause bodily harm or death to a child as a result of negligence should be punished by the criminal law.

the recent accidents involving children have made this proposal a bone of contention. early this year, the deaths of two children who fell from the arms of a parent on the fourth floor of a shopping mall in north china’s tianjin Municipality caused a stir among the public about the negligence of parents who fail to keep their children safe in public places. this was exasperated by the death of a little boy who drowned in a swimming pool in west china’s shaanxi Province while his mother was using her smartphone.

According to the proposal, around 100,000 children died from accidents in china annually in the past years. Given the serious nature of the situation, some support the proposal, believing it will urge parents to better perform their duties of guardianship. others maintain that this kind of harsh punishment adds insult to injury by imposing criminal sanctions on parents who are grieving for the loss of their children. Rather than legislation, it is more practical and meaningful to put in place more stringent measures to protect children in public spaces and educate parents on what precautionary methods they can adopt to prevent such tragedies.