51 unwanted youngsters left at ‘safe haven’
Print Edition
A new “safe haven” for unwanted children in Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong Province, received 51 youngsters in its first two weeks of opening, according to a CCTV program.
The facility, which opened on January 28, ahead of this year’s Spring Festival, is located at the Children’s Social Welfare Home, which is supervised by the civil affairs bureau of Guangzhou.
A member of the bureau staff yesterday confirmed to Shanghai Daily the number of children left at the new unit. She added that the China Central TV program had aroused a lot of media attention and that she had received numerous requests for interviews from organizations across the country.
Most of the children left at the facility were later diagnosed with serious illnesses and physical defects, such as cerebral palsy, congenital heart disease, Down’s syndrome and cleft lips, Xu Jiu, director of the home, said.
The youngsters were aged from three days to six years, and several had been left with notes telling of the hardship of their parents, Xu said.
Prior to the opening of the safe haven, the most children ever left at the home over a holiday period was 28 during the May Day break in 2007.
The safe haven program was launched by the Ministry of Civil Affairs to provide shelter for unwanted children. The scheme has stirred debate, however, with some arguing that it encourages people to abandon their offspring.
Legal experts have said it is hard to decide whether or not parents are being negligent as the safe haven does not require them to provide any form of identification when they leave their children.
Zhang Xuemei, executive director of the Beijing Youth Legal Aid and Research Center said that parents who are incapable of caring for their children should not be accused of abandonment, but punishments should be handed down to those who can.
Wang Zhenyao, dean of the China Philanthropy Research Institute at Beijing Normal University, blames the government’s lack of child welfare support for the high number of abandonment cases.
“Without an institutional welfare system that can help families with severely disabled or ill children, many parents simply cannot afford the expensive medical treatments they need,” Wang said.
The government should provide insurance for such children and pay subsidies to families so that they can be cared for at home, Wang said.
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