Guangzhou: baby hatch stops taking in abandoned children
Guangzhou (AsiaNews) - A public shelter in Guangzhou, capital of the rich southern province of Guangdong, announced that it was being forced to suspend its baby hatch, one of many recently opened across China.
According to Xu Ju, director of the city's Child Welfare Centre that runs the service, the shelter was closed because it ran out of bed space given the high number of children left at the baby hatch. Since it opened on 28 January, it has received 262 babies, mostly disabled.
Xu said the centre had added 100 beds to its normal capacity of about 1,000, but they were full. He said he hopes the authorities would provide more money to expand the facility.
Usually, baby hatches include a heated incubator and a delayed alarm device. When parents place their child in the hatch, they press an alarm button and leave, remaining anonymous. A few minutes later, someone comes to retrieve the baby.
Most children left at the hatches are disabled or seriously ill, probably abandoned by parents who cannot afford medical care.
About 25 such hatches have been established on the mainland in 10 provinces and major cities, this according to Xinhua. The first was opened in 2011.
In its first 15 days of operation, the Guangzhou hatch received 79 children. The hatches in Xian and Shenzhen are among the busiest in the country; along with Guangdong's capital, these two cities are also major transit points for internal migrants.
China's new baby hatches are an attempt to counter some of the problems caused by its one-child policy, designed to prevent unwanted births and maintain quotas established by population control authorities through hefty fines and violence.
This policy has often led to girls being abandoned. However, both baby girls and boys are being left at these hatches at a time when the government decided to relax its one-child policy, allowing couples in which one partner is an only child to have a second child.
"This is a good step," Catholic sources working with abandoned children told AsiaNews. "In Europe in the Middle Ages, the Church took in abandoned children. Nowadays in many regions, Chinese Catholics, especially nuns but also lay people, take in abandoned, usually disabled children. Although they live under constant threat, they are cared for."
In fact, "Some small centres already exist," they explain. "The cases in Xian and Shenzhen are welcome because they reduce the number of abortions. However, local officials are still a danger. We must figure out what they will do with the funds allocated for these projects. Hopefully, they will put them to good use."
Still, the authorities are not pleased with private initiatives. Although non-governmental organisations have been given some greater leeway, their activities have come under scrutiny.
At the same time, in Guangzhou the city would provide financial aid to poor families with sick new-borns to reduce the number of abandoned children, said Ye Fen, head of the Civil Affair Bureau.
The authorities are also considering the possibility of providing free medical treatment to sick or disabled children.
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01/02/2019 17:07
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