Beijing wants new, stricter laws for state orphanages
There are more than 1000 "children's welfare homes" in China, often rocked by scandals links to trafficking in minors for sale to Chinese or foreign couples. Aid for orphans ranges between 8 to 5 euros per month.
Beijing (AsiaNews/SCMP) "New, more severe regulations" for China's state orphanages will be announced shortly, Li Xueju said today. The Chinese Civil Affairs Minister was speaking on the sidelines of the National People's Congress.
The new norms "aim to lay out standards for running government orphanages and to narrow the huge discrepancies among them". Li said: "Some government orphanages are very good, while some are very bad. We have to think of ways to narrow the gap.
China has more than 1000 state orphanages, usually known as "children's welfare homes". Most of them are notorious for their poor conditions and frequent scandal linked to the trafficking of minors.
The latest case was uncovered last month: the former director and nine staff of a children's home in Hunan were sentenced to between one and 15 years in prison for buying and selling children to strangers. For Li, "the only way to stop this horrendous trafficking, in addition to police crackdowns, is to impose stricter guidelines on the staff working in orphanages, to decide who will be allowed to be there in a position of power."
According to a joint study by China's Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Save the Children Fund and Beijing Normal University, there are 573,000 orphans in China. More than a third receive no government aid whatsoever and for many there is no medical care and education. Eighty-six per cent of all orphans live in rural areas and only half of these receive local government assistance, while 70% of orphans in cities receive some form of such aid.
"In some areas, payments do not cover even a quarter of a normal child's daily living expenses, and in many regions, it's as little as a tenth," said Shang Xiaoyuan, professor at the Beijing Normal University, who took part in the study. "Many orphans are living in extreme poverty, especially in rural areas".
Around 78% of all orphans live with relatives, but some 69,000 without any family at all, are housed in public institutions. Henan holds the bulk of these children with some 50,000. In agricultural areas, each child receives 1,190 yuan (around 132 dollars) from the government per year, but in some provinces, like Guizhou, Hunan and Guangxi Zhuang, they don't get more than 50 yuan (five euros) per month.
Kate Wedgwood, programme director for the China desk of Save the Children, said the number of orphans is calculated on the basis of central government data, but the real numbers could be much higher.
Many experts believe that the government's lack of care for orphans favours abductions of children, who are sold to families who want to adopt them. Boys are deemed "quality goods" and fetch prices more than twice that of girls, "substandard" merchandise.
The problem is widespread also because of the high number of couples who because of China's 'one-child policy' do not want to "risk" having a girl, so they buy a boy, the traditionally preferred choice.
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