A solution to the problem of left-behind kids

At an executive meeting of the State Council, China’s cabinet, on Jan 27, Premier Li Keqiang announced an overall policy arrangement of providing care for left-behind children, who live in rural hometown while their parents migrate to cities for work. Following are media comments: gov.cn: “We should not let the left-behind children problem become a family and social pain forever”, Premier Li said at the State Council meeting on Jan 27. He added that strengthening the programs that provide care and protection to tens of millions of such children, in order to promote their healthy development, is the common responsibility of families, the government and society.

The meeting urged families to strengthen their custodial role, asked grassroots governments, village (neighborhood) committees and schools to fulfill their responsibilities of providing care and education for the children, and called on social workers and charity organizations to help improve the care-providing system.

Aside from promising to establish a problem-reporting, intervention and assistance system for left-behind children, the meeting also vowed to make more efforts to establish boarding schools and strictly crack down on illegal activities that compromise such children’s rights and interests. The meeting also said conditions should be created to enable migrant workers to become urban residents or encourage them to return to their rural homes and launch startups.

Most people migrate to cities to work in order to fulfill their responsibilities toward their children and families. So, the safety of their children is their top concern. Given these facts, the entire society should work together to provide care and love for left-behind children in rural areas. Xinhua News Agency: The about 60 million left-behind children in China are now a major social issue. For lack of care, love and family education, many of these children can go astray.

Providing care and education for left-behind children is the best way to protect their rights and interests, and it is a good way of preventing them from turning into juvenile delinquents. In this regard, the overall arrangement made by the State Council meeting is of great significance.

Parents are responsible for educating their children as well as inculcating social values into them. But the government should also play its role: It should put in place a set of mechanisms to detect clues to potential tragedies and take measures to prevent them when parents are unable to fulfill their familial responsibilities because of unavoidable circumstances.

The government should also create the right environment for the development of forces that specialize in legal, psychological and social work to offer help to left-behind children and to protect them against abuse. And for parents who deliberately neglect their familial responsibilities, the government should take measures to hold them accountable. ifeng.com: The fact that many major incidents related to left-behind children have taken place in the past few years indicates they have become a real issue that can influence China’s development. In this sense, the arrangement announced by the Jan 27 State Council meeting for providing care for left-behind children embodies the national will to address this social issue.

By emphasizing that it is the joint responsibility of families, the government and society to ensure the healthy development of left-behind children, the government has addressed the growing public concern over the series of tragic incidents involving such children in recent years.

Many parents do leave behind their children in rural areas, but this does not justify the absence of government role in their healthy development. A responsible government should take measures to provide care and education for left-behind children.

Aside from making more efforts to establish boarding schools, the government should also try to lower the threshold for migrant workers to get urban hukou, or household registration, and create conditions to enable financially capable parents to keep their children with them in the cities they work.

A workable solution to the problem will propel the country’s urbanization drive. And whether or not the government can reach a social consensus on the left-behind children problem and make necessary efforts to address it will test its governance capability.