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Getting street kids into care
By Wang Ying (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-03-09 05:59
Chen Long, a 14-year-old boy who ran away from home and wandered the streets
of Zhengzhou, capital of Central China's Henan Province, found life was full of
misery until he was saved by social workers.
He is one of thousands of Chinese youngsters who have found themselves in a
desperate situation and have been bailed out by the authorities and taken into
care.
A street boy wanders in Haikou, south China's
island province of Hainan in this undated photo.
[newsphoto] |
His story, discussed at a "street children" protection conference in Beijing
yesterday, makes for grim reading, although Chen is one of the luckier ones.
Chen, from a very poor farm in Huaxian County, was thinking about leaving
home to work in the city when he met a middle-aged man on his way home from
school late last year.
The man promised to help the youngster find a job in Chengdu, capital of
Southwest China's Sichuan Province. The next day Chen and the man both secretly
climbed onto a freight train.
However, soon afterwards the man stole all Chen's money while the teenager
slept and then disappeared.
After wandering the streets for months, Chen was rescued by Zhengzhou police
when he lost consciousness due to hunger late last year.
He was sent to the city's children's protection centre where he received
food, a shower, new clothes, a physical checkup and counselling, and he went
home a few days later.
However, unlike Chen who has a home to go back to, some children at the
centre are orphans.
Others do not want to go home, fearing abuse or neglect from their parents,
said Wang Wanmin, director of the centre.
"Home sometimes becomes a dangerous place for children who regularly receive
violence and abuse from family members and relatives," Wang said at a national
conference on street children protection which concluded yesterday in Beijing.
The centre in Zhengzhou has formed several "foster families" to help and
protect street children in communities with a favourable environment. In each
"family," two or three adult volunteers take care of five or six children until
they turn 18.
In recent years, 128 such centres providing protection and education for
street children have been built in major Chinese cities, said Li Liguo, the
vice-minister of civil affairs.
By the end of 2003, the Chinese Government had spent more than 120 million
yuan (US$14.5 million) to establish the centres, providing aid to more than
10,000 children, Li said.
China plans to build more institutions for street children while
strengthening co-operation with some international organizations, such as the
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Britain-based Save the Children,
he said.
In the past three years, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the UNICEF and other
international organizations have launched a series of programmes in the cities
of Zhengzhou and Changsha in Central China's Hunan Province to form foster
families for street children.
"Fortunately, the street children have received help in time from the
international community and have gotten away from violence, abuse, drugs and
sexual exploitation," said Robert Wilkinson, an official with Save the Children
(China).
"Besides food and accommodation, these centres are supposed to provide formal
and informal education, rehabilitation and training to help the children better
re-enter society," Wilkinson said.
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