The Diverging Duality: How the Children in Rural China are at Risk in the Current Foster Care System
By: Jennifer Miao Wang
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Although China is seen as a fierce and powerful country in the eyes of the world, the severe disparities between the urban metropolitans of China and the struggling rural ares of the country varies immensely, which creates a difficult tension within legislature on the topic of the foster care system and the protection of children, as well as putting the population in rural areas at high risk. This essay will explore the vulnerabilities children face in the foster care and adoption system China, with a strong emphasis on the rural districts, as well as orphaned and abandonment girls. The lack of child protection in the Chinese foster care system will also be discussed, and the need for it to be urgently rectified in order to safeguard all children who are affected by the system is strongly argued. Furthermore, and more importantly, the Chinese government need to remedy the currently broken system and amend foster care and adoption policies and create a new structure that can guarantee the security and the rights and freedoms of orphaned or abandoned children in the Chinese foster care system.
Foster care was first introduced to China by the Save the Children Fund, which marked a very important stage in the process of policy-making on this issue. For the past two decade, the Chinese government have been seeking innovative approaches to resolve the current issues within the system, but the basis of the system is too broken to build upon. The adoption and foster care system is currently placed under the hands of the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA). This administrative branch is responsible for all social and administrative affairs, but due to its extensive range of duties, and at a disparate nature, there is a lack of unity and coherence; this stops the emergence of the fulfillment of the agency’s goals and missions. According to various Chinese statutes, including the Adoption Law, the Marriage Law, and the Law on the Protection of Minors, the act of abandonment of children is seen as a crime. In the Adoption Law, article 30, it states that “whoever abandons an infant shall be imposed upon a fine of not more than 1,000 Yuan by a public security organ; if the circumstances are so flagrant as to constitute a crime, the offender shall be investigated for criminal responsibility in accordance with Article 183 of the Criminal Law.” As stated in the legislation, offenders would only be fined a maximum of 1000 Yuan, if they commit this crime. Although the financial situation between rural areas and urban regions are vastly different, 1000 RMB is not a large enough fine for the seriousness a crime such as abandonment. Several articles in the Hunyin Fa, or Marriage Law prohibits the desertion of a family member, or the act of infanticide, and the Law on the Protection of Minors, or Weicheng Nianren Baohu Fa, states that “infanticide and other acts of cruelly killing infants shall be prohibited,” with a specific emphasis on female children. Although these acts are all outlined as illegal activities, and anyone who commits these actions will be criminally responsible and charged, there is a lack formal implementation and enforcement, especially in the rural areas of China, for these legislations to have an authoritative or punitive effect on citizens.
The issue of child abandonment is one of the least investigated issues in China, with officials and even the population cloaking this practice in secrecy due to shame and political embarrassment. There is an absence of proper scrutiny put on to the responsible parties to change their ways and improve the currently system, which leaves the current system, and the wellness of the children in the foster care system, idling. The weakest point in the MCA administration is on the township and village levels, for a majority of the rural population are administered here, but the entire range of civil affairs duty is handled by only by a few civil affairs assistants. Furthermore, the different levels of governments are monopolizing from welfare homes, while leaving orphanages and welfare centres overcrowded and extremely underfunded. All orphaned and abandoned children in China are eligible to be cared for by state orphanages; this leaves many children, especially orphaned girls, at high risk, for many young girls never make it into records in population register; girls are also more likely to be rejected or neglected by orphanages due to the fact that the population rather adopt boys rather than girls, and the overcrowding makes it difficult for the orphanages to sustain all the children. An estimate of 10,000 infants were abandonment in the province of Guangdong between 1987 and 1989, with ninety percent of that number being females. Although the opening of international adoptions in the 1990s has helped several major orphanages, as well as the international adoption of orphaned girls, many unlicensed and illegally ran foster care homes and orphanages still exist, putting the children at risk. Moreover, informal adoptions happen very quickly with healthy children, especially with healthy baby boys, many of which never reach the attention of the authorities, while many girls and sick or disabled children are placed in welfare centres and the foster care system that do not adequately care for their basic necessities and do not have their best interest at heart. A regulation that was put into action in 2014 by the MCA limited foster home to take in a maximum of two children instead of three, which is what it previously was, as well as raising the formal qualifications for potential foster parents by requiring a minimum of nine years of formal education and at least an average financial status for the region the home is located at. Although this new regime may better protect the children in the system, many social workers are afraid that placing this new regulations on top of an already broken system, as well as the rarity of foster homes and adoption in China, this new regulation may make fostering children an even more anomaly than it already is. Families are only receiving around 1000 Yuan, which is an equivalent to $180 USD, for welfare centres each month, which is not nearly enough to support a child. As of 2014, 30,000 children are living in foster families across China, but the number is still very small, due to the lack of financial resources in rural areas, resulting in many unlicensed foster families and orphanages. Currently in China, non-governmental forces seems to have more influence in the policy-making process, many times due to NGOs being equipped with better economic resources. Many pilot foster care projects have spring up in various provinces in China since 1997, mostly by these domestic or foreign non-governmental organizations, but also by local governments. However, no formal implementation of procedures or guidelines have been made. The rural-urban duality characteristic within the current system also adds a layer of difficulty on governing authorities to establish an expansive and all-encompassing legislation that can benefit all areas of this vast country. Institutional care is the primary, as well as the preferred, form of caring service, and these are monopolized by the government in urban regions. However, for the masses living in rural areas, institutional care is not available, and foster care is only then considered as a last resort. Many social welfare and relief systems faces policy neglect; the budget for social welfare services and relief was reduced from 0.58% to a mere 0.19% pf gross domestic product in 1997. This, along side with state investment falling behind on what is needed to maintain provisions at the existing levels today, means that civil affairs departments are unable to meet the demands for caring for children within the system adequately, for they also failed to keep up with rising cost for living and maintenance in China.
The United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child states in article 19(1) that State Parties should take “all appropriate legislative, administrative, social, and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of…neglect or negligent treatment”, which includes any form of physical neglect and abandonment. The CRC also states that the best interest of the child is also a right in article 3(1), and one of the factors to consider is the situation of vulnerability. The General Comments on the right of the child to have his or her best interests taken as a primary consideration states that:
The best interests of a child in a specific situation of vulnerability will not be the same as those of all the children in the same vulnerable situation. Authorities and decision-makers need to take into account the different kinds and degrees of vulnerability of each child, as each child is unique and each situation must be assessed according to the child’s uniqueness.
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has also recommended that the Chinese nation state “develop effective strategies to prevent the abandonment of children, which include early identification of families and children at risk and the possibility for social workers to intervene and help families directly” in the Concluding Observations of China. The Government of China has not implemented many of the procedure and guidelines that the CRC and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has outlined and suggested. The General Comments also suggested that administrative authorities should establish decisions that covers a broad area, concerning all elements that needs to be taken into account, including the child’s right to health, education, the environment, living conditions, as well as access to nationality, which is especially important for female infants in the rural areas of China. Furthermore, “the Committee’s experience is that the child’s right to be heard is not always taken into account by States parties…[and] recommends that States parties ensure, through legislation, regulation and policy directives, that the child’s views are solicited and considered, including decisions regarding placement in foster care or homes.”
Male favouritism has been a long and on-going mindset in Chinese culture, and within a majority of families, girls face a tremendous amount of prejudice and are often very vulnerable. Due to these prejudiced and misogynistic view, girls are even more powerless within the foster care system China currently has implemented and follow. Based on the long standing traditions of Confucianism, son preference has been a major part of the Chinese culture. Although equality between genders of socioeconomic, political, as well as culture is guaranteed in China’s constitution, patriarchal attitudes are still very prevalent in the Chinese society, especially in the rural areas of the country. Sons are more widely desired, and are seen to be a greater economic asset than daughters, for they are considered the ones that will pass on the family name and linage, and old-age security and provision of labour also is expected from the son; daughters are thought to leave the natal household upon marriage, while sons are expected to maintain financial and social ties to the household throughout their lives. In the rural areas of China, sons are even more preferred due to the need for more labour, and daughters are often taught to do housework; many times, due to limited family resources, daughters are taken out of school to earn money to financially support their families while boys were provided with longer education. In the countryside, many young women resort to migrating to larger and more urban cities, such as Beijing, and becoming domestic servants in order earn enough money to send back home to their families. For example, 21 immigrant female domestic servants all live at their “Domestic Servant Home”, and “eighteen out of the twenty-one young women said that their parents wanted to live with their male sibling in old age” and many of them also quitted school to work in the fields after their younger brothers were born. Son preference is believed to be the principal cause of the female abandonment, and the practice of sex-selective abortions and infanticide. Many families want more sons than daughters, so they will continue childbearing until the number of sons they want is achieved. As sex-selective technology began to become more widespread around 1985, sex ratios at birth started to rapidly rise as well; and coinciding with the one-child policy that was implemented in 1979, both increased the discrimination against female children. As of April of 2005, there are 573,371 orphaned children in China, or the Chinese term gu’er, but this number is most likely extremely underestimated. The number of girls in orphanages in China is also much higher than that of boys, with the estimated number being nearly all girls. Girl are being abandoned soon after birth due to the parents wanting a son, and by not resisting the girl, they can still use their childbearing permit to try again for a boy, which can be seen as another form of gender selection. Although Chinese societal thinking has made significant progress, and the situation in urban cities is not as vital as the situation in rural China, seventy percent of the population still lives in the rural areas, so male preference is still the dominant mode. These actions from these Chinese parents clearly violates the rights of these children; according to article 2(1) of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, “States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child's … sex, … social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.” Further, article 2(2) urges States Parties to “take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination”, which the Chinese nation state have not ensured that any of these rights are not violated, which puts not only girls, but also all children in the system at high risk.
It is clear that girls in rural areas have much higher risks and encounter many obstacles and hardships not only within the Chinese foster care system, but from the moment they are born, but nothing at the moment is being done to relieve their troubles. This issue also flows in to the global problem of child labour, trafficking, as well as sexual abuse and exploitations of young girls. No legislation in China formally protects young girls from these crimes, which is something that needs to be addressed. Many parents are caught between the policies from the state, and the expectations from society, and the outcome to this conflict is abandonment, which functions as a mean of mediating the strongly conflicting pressure within the system. Recent change in domestic regulations, along with allowing couple with one or more children, to adopt, as well as actively promoting national adoption networks for local welfare centres may be able to quickly increase the ability of civil affairs departments to find new parents for foundlings. This will reduce the crowding in welfare centres as well as help lower the mortality rates of children that are staying in institutional settings, especially when the environment of these welfare centres are very likely violating the children’s rights.
The bilateral contrast between the urban areas and the rural regions of China leaves the foster care system policy makers at a difficult crossroad; due to the emergence of birth planning efforts, such as the one-child policy, which were meant to help the problem of overpopulation, had the opposite effect, causing the increased wave of child abandonment, for the desire for a son causes parents to abandonment infant girls in order to achieve their wishes. The need for a greater surveillance system and supervision is an essential preliminary step in rebuilding the system, as well as the need for a more thorough birth planning effort, including reorientation birth planning to be more inclusive, rather than limiting. Sexual education within the education system is also tremendously lacking, compared to the Western world, which is also a complication that needs to be rectified. Due to the lack of protection specifically for girls within the system, especially in rural districts, a more specialized branch of the MCA should be created to administer, overlook, and create specific female only welfare programs for young girls within the system to ensure that their rights are not violated, and that the best interest of the child is ensured as well. In addition, a more strict consequence should be placed on the act of abandonment to discourage this inhumane and illegal act, and act as a pre-emptive measure. Specific legislation and procedures must be implemented in rural areas targeting the problems explicitly within this region, and funding in this area needs to be increased drastically as well. The People’s Republic of China is teetering on the edge of the very alarming and serious issue of substandard foster care system, and through more thorough and meticulous legislation and regimes, it is possible to see the currently inoperative system mend itself into a system that can assiduously protect the wellbeing of Chinese children in all corners of the vast country.