Migrant children more vulnerable

By Li Wenfang and Xiang Yiwen (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-20 08:02

* The children, who are often less sophisticated than their urban counterparts, may be abducted by a stranger offering candy or ice cream.

GUANGZHOU: Children of migrant workers in Guangdong province are highly vulnerable to abductions, accidental deaths and injuries, according to police statistics.

Family members of a dead boy cry at Jingdu Mansion in Yuexiu district, Guangzhou, Guangdong province, where the 5-year-old boy fell down an elevator shaft on the fifth floor of the building on Aug 12. Preliminary investigation found that the boy stepped into the elevator shaft when the doors opened on the fifth floor, but the elevator was actually stopped at the sixth floor. [China Daily/Xia Shiyan]

Inset: The boy's photo was taken by his father's mobile phone when he celebrated his fifth birthday. [Courtesy of the father]

In the 35 days prior to Aug 3, 10 children were killed and one injured in accidents in Shenzhen and Guangdong, according to the women's federation of the city.

Most of those were children of migrant workers, who don't get proper supervision from their parents during summer vacation.

During the summer vacation, children of workers in Dongguan and Guangdong are vulnerable to getting lost, deception and drowning, according to the city's public security bureau.

By the end of last month, 24 children had been killed in car accidents in Dongguan. Some of them had come from outside the city to spend the summer vacation with their working parents.

The parents are partly to blame, because they lack the will and knowledge to care for their children properly, experts say. The children, who are often less sophisticated than their urban counterparts, may be abducted by a stranger offering candy or ice cream, according to the bureau.

Guangdong has more migrant workers than any other province in China, with estimates of about 30 million migrant workers, official figures show.

Migrant children have become a target of abductors, as some of the parents fail to change their concept of raising children, formed in rural areas, to the urban sensibility.

They are often reluctant to send their children to child-care centers, due to the cost, reported Guangzhou-based Yangcheng Evening News earlier this year, citing the police and children experts.

Also, girls left in rural areas by their parents working in other places have become vulnerable to sexual assault.

Accidental injuries have happened more to migrant children than local children, Zeng Jinghua, research director of Guangdong Youth and Children Research Center, told China Daily.

Accidents have been identified as the No. 1 killer of children in China, especially during the summer months, according to a research report released by the provincial women's federation in 2007. The phenomenon is especially true of migrant children.

The increase of migrant laborers and rising accidental injuries are related, said Monica Cui, executive director of Safe Kid Worldwide China.

To strengthen the protection of migrant children, the provincial women's federation has sponsored child-safety seminars and distributed pamphlets, especially in Zhongshan and Dongguan, which have big migrant populations, said Mo Yiyun, who works at the children's division of the federation. The federation has been working to open child-care centers jointly with leaders in various communities.

The provincial committee of the youth league has been stepping up efforts on vacation safety education, with a number of departments devoted to the interests of migrant children, Zeng said.

The government and communities should do more to expand the security net for children, especially for children of migrant workers, both Mo and Cui said.