Boy’s death highlights tragedy of China’s left-behind children
Print Edition
Xiao Lin went to school to pick up his academic report alone, while most of his schoolmates were accompanied by their parents.
Nine-year-old Lin (a pseudonym), whose divorced parents had been working away from Sige Village in Wangjiang County of east China’s Anhui Province for years, looked a bit disappointed with his scores.
Lin’s mother phoned home that night, saying she would not be home for the Lunar New Year, the second year Lin was not going to see her. Lin was silent during supper, staring into the distance.
No one realized the boy was planning to end his life. He killed himself in the toilet that night, just days away from Spring Festival. He left no note.
Lin was one of China’s vast number of “left-behind” migrant children. His father left the village for work less than 30 days after Lin was born.
“Left-behind” children are usually taken care of by grandparents or other relatives and their number is approaching 100 million.
Lin’s mother also became a migrant worker when she and her husband divorced two years ago. The boy was transferred to an elementary school near his step-father’s home village in Anhui Province. He was then transferred back half a year later to the school he originally attended.
Lin’s parents never went to school to pick up his academic reports with him, nor had they ever attended parents’ meetings, enhancing his insecurity, according to Yang Qinglin, the school’s headmaster.
“He was more well-behaved than his schoolmates, because he knew no one was going to defend him if he caused trouble at school,” Yang said.
Lin rarely received a phone call from his parents. In fact, even after his death, his father appeared indifferent, reluctant to return home from the city where he was struggling to make money.
A day before Lin killed himself, two “left-behind” girls aged 9 and 10 in central Hunan Province secretly took a train to meet their parents in Zhaoqing City in southern Guangdong Province.
In November, an 11-year-old boy from Hubei Province went to look for his parents in Beijing with less than 100 yuan (US$16.5) in his pockets that he had saved up. He was sent home by police.
Sang Qingsong, a professor with Anhui Normal University, said the lack of parental love and care toward “left-behind” children created a sense of helplessness and abandonment.
According to an All-China Women’s Federation report in May, problems facing “left-behind” and migrant children, including a lack of family closeness, security, protection and educational opportunities, have not been resolved. Problems keep emerging.
Sang said that Lin’s case, like others, is an outcry for love, and that measures should be taken to prevent the situation from worsening.
He said it was important to urge Chinese enterprises to start businesses in the countryside so people could work near where they live, which would decrease the number of “left-behind” children.
“Society should give more care and love to people like Lin so that such a tragedy will not happen again,” Sang said.
There are some 260 million migrant workers in China’s cities. Spring Festival is often the only chance for them to see their children and family back home in the countryside.
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