China’s left-behind children
It is estimated that there are more than 19 million ‘left-behind’ children under the age of 15 in China.
These are children placed into the care of their extended family while their parents go to find work in the cities, often to try and pay for their education and the rising cost of living.
China’s economic boom and work-orientated society sees huge inequalities in the salaries paid to workers in the cities and the countryside – leaving many villagers with little choice but to travel to the larger towns in search of work.
In some cases the children go with their parents and live in shanty towns on the outskirts of cities such as the capital Beijing, often in poor conditions. But mostly they will stay behind with grandparents or aunts and uncles who look after them until their parents return.
Once parents leave, communication with their children is extremely difficult. Telephone calls are costly and often the children’s guardians don’t have a telephone. Letters are even harder as the migrant workers addresses constantly change as they move around in search of employment.
Unless they are able to find work within the same province, parents will typically be gone for years and only return during the Spring Festival in February.
As such, the effect on the children left behind is devastating. Many experience behavioural difficulties in class and are unemotional, unhappy and detached individuals as they do not experience enough love and care.
The children left behind
Liu Xu is nine and has lived with her grandparents and baby cousin in a village in Chun Hua County since she was three years old.
Her parents are both migrant workers and are divorced – a fact kept from Liu Xu by her grandparents.
Her father, 34-year-old Liu Tao is an electrician and sends money home to look after his daughter. The grandparents also have apple trees and sell the fruit at the markets.
“My parents left me behind as they had no-one to take me to and from school while they worked. They are in the city of Xi’an. I speak to them two to three times a month if possible and last saw them at the Spring Festival in February. I miss my parents most during the holidays when I am home from school.”
Wang Shuai is a 13-year-old living with his grandparents. He attends the local primary school.
Left behind when he was ten years old, the last time his parents visited was at the Spring Festival and they hardly ever call him while they are away.
“My mum is working in Xiang Yang City and my dad is in Shen Mu County. I don’t know what they do for a living. I have two older sisters – one working in the south and the other in Xiang Yang City. My parents left me behind because they have to raise the family by making money to support me through school.
“I feel sad. I am different from my friends because they have parents that live with them and I don’t. When I am older I want to be a soldier because soldiers can save the world.”
Liu Shi is a ten year old boy and attends the local primary school. He has lived with his grandparents since he was three and his parents have now moved from a nearby town selling funeral goods to Zhe Jiang – a city much further away.
“My parents work in the east of China. They come back here once a year. When they left they said they would come back after one or two years but I told them I wanted them to come back earlier. They haven’t so far.
“I feel sad. Before, when they worked nearby, my dad use to bring me to the country at the weekends to buy toys and he used to help me when I had problems with my homework. Now I have to ask my neighbour’s older children for help. My study scores are worse than they used to be.
“When I am older I want to be a teacher so I can help others to learn. I don’t want to move away from my parents so when they come back I will stay.”
How Plan is helping
Poor and vulnerable children, such as those left behind while their parents work, do not receive the protection to which they are entitled. Like their parents they are denied the opportunity to participate in making the decisions that affect their lives.
Plan works in five programme areas in Shaanxi and is opening a new unit in Ningxia. Both these regions are among the poorest provinces of the country
Plan also works with partner organisations in 16 provinces and four urban areas to provide child protection and social inclusion for migrant workers and migrant children.
Child protection
In Shaanxi Plan is supporting the setting up of the Shaanxi Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect – the first professional local child protection organisation in China. Here, Plan provides technical training to volunteers and organises field trip visits to build up members of the network.
Children in the villages are encouraged to take part in development theatre and art groups to express their opinions and ideas and tell others of their experiences and how they are feeling.
They also work with the network to build awareness of the difficulties migrant worker’s children face, by going into schools and communities and speaking about the issues, and trying to prevent child abuse and neglect.
In total Plan China support 65 child development theatre and art groups.
School resources
A recent donation from the Hilton Foundation of £97,500 has contributed to the setting up of the Migrant Children’s Project. This looks at the schooling and education of migrant children, mainly those who have gone with their parent rather than stayed behind.
In the shanty towns where the migrant families live on the fringes of cities, there are schools for the children but they are poorly equipped and underfunded. The Project enables Plan to go into these schools and train teachers properly, looking at art, photography, sports and essential education on sanitation.
Under the School Improvement Project, Plan also works to improve the quality of basic education in rural areas by improving school management, teaching methodology, and increasing community participation in school decision making and resource allocation.
Education for all
Education for All is a five year programme that works to improve the quality of education in Shaanxi schools and makes it more accessible for left-behind children, with teachers aware of their needs and trained to encourage them and help them achieve.
Plan supports the local education authorities to develop more localised methods of teaching the children, training teachers and creating incentives for them to change their attitudes and behaviours and enabling children and parents to take part in the management of schools.
In the Early Childhood care and Development Project, Plan partners with Nokia to improve the pre-school curriculum and the instructions and advice given out to parents, teachers and carers on how to look after their children.
Training for migrant workers
Training unskilled migrant workers can raise their standard of living and give their children a better sense of the reasons their parents left them. Most migrant workers are from rural areas and are uneducated, so the find it difficult to find work with a decent wage.
To combat this issue, Plan has opened New Citizens Community Technology Learning Centres – one in Xi’an and the other in Nanjing.
These offer free classes on basic computer and internet skills, career guidance and health counselling including AIDS and infectious diseases prevention.
It is expected that by July, more than 3,500 migrants will have been trained in these skills, leading to a more prosperous future, and encouraging better links with the communities they have moved into.
Microfinance projects
Plan also works with local microcredit associations to increase and improve lending to rural families in the Microcredit Project so that the parents can earn money at home by running a small business or by farming livestock.
To improve the effectiveness of the loans, we provide training in agriculture and livestock farming, financial and market knowledge to communities. We also train local microcredit associations and help them to improve management, resources and financial sustainability.
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