Assistance from civil society for these children is becoming the prevailing trend in Chongqing. There are 1.07 million left-behind children in the southwestern municipality, representing 26.49 percent of the total from kindergarten to junior middle school ages. Absence of parental care and over-indulgence from grandparents have brought about certain character defects and anti-social behavior in many children that are serious causes of concern to both families and schools.

The Chongqing municipal government has acted to remedy the situation by expanding and improving childcare facilities and services. This includes allocating substitute parents, setting up boarding schools, and entrusting lone-living minors to the custody of their relatives. Over the past few years, the city has built 1,813 out-of-school childcare institutions and 980 children’s homes in rural communities. Around 80,000 substitute parents have also been selected to help children on an individual basis during after-school hours. So far 2,200 video chatting rooms have been set up in 1,700 or more schools in Chongqing, and 10,000 phone landlines installed in more than 3,000 schools, making it convenient for children to maintain contact with their parents living outside of the region. The government hopes these measures will to some extent ease the woes of left-behind children.

Government initiatives for all rural schoolchildren, such as free eggs, milk and school lunches, are of particular benefit to those in the left-behind bracket. Programs to improve the lives of this special group have also been introduced, and funds earmarked for free health checks. A total of 2,000 boarding schools have been newly built or renovated in rural areas, and the dining rooms of 1,000 rural boarding schools refurbished.

The Chongqing municipal government has spent more than RMB 14.1 billion (US $2.25 billion) on bringing these measures into effect over the past two years, according to Zhou Xu, director of the Education Commission of Chongqing.

Efforts by the Chongqing municipal government to give more help to left-behind children were confirmed at the Meeting on Work for Rural Left-behind Children held at the end of 2011. Zhao Donghua, member of the Secretariat of the All-China Women’s Federation, said at the meeting that the measures adopted in Chongqing are both practicable and effective and should be promoted in other regions around the country.

Similar programs have indeed come into effect in other parts of China. More than 3,700 institutions to guide and help left-behind children have been established, and 4,000 campaigns launched to recruit and train substitute parents for these children.

No Substitute for Parental Responsibility

All the help, care and compassion that government and civil society give to left-behind children, however, could never compensate for the love and care of their real parents. This is the considered opinion of staff at the Education, Science, Culture and Public Health Committee of Chongqing Municipal People’s Congress, the local legislature.

The committee’s research has shown that the parents of about 30 percent of left-behind children in Chongqing have not returned to their homes for three to five years. Also that 40 percent or more of left-behind children in poverty-stricken areas have had no contact with their parents for a year, and that some parents have neither been home nor had any contact with their children for as long as eight years.

Zhou Xu regards such a situation as a source of emotional pain for both children and parents. “During the Chongqing Municipal People’s Congress survey, some children wept when asked about their parents. Others had nothing to say, but would cry while talking to their parents via phone or the Internet, and others still expressed resentment that their parents had left them,” Zhou said. He calls on both parents and the public to pay due attention to these children’s emotional state.

“Absence of parental love is the main problem of left-behind children, simply because their parents are never around,” said Su Fengjie, vice director of the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council (NWCCW). “We should therefore emphasize the obligation and responsibility of parents as guardians and instill in them through training a stronger sense of responsibility.” Su pointed out that many parents are aware of the detrimental effect their absence has on their relationship with their kids, but nonetheless place greater importance on children’s studies and physical health. They consequently ignore symptoms of poor mental health often apparent in their children, such as being withdrawn and displaying anti-social tendencies.

Zhou Xu says the Chongqing municipal government plans to hold 9,000 lectures for rural parents in the municipality by 2015, thus ensuring attendance of 90 percent or more of rural families.

Su Fengjie believes that encouraging parents to return to their hometowns is the ultimate solution to the left-behind children phenomenon. Developing the local economy will induce laborers who left their homes in search of better jobs to come back, so greatly reducing numbers of children left to fend for themselves. Former labor exporting regions that are now undergoing rapid economical growth, such as Chongqing and Suzhou, have seen an accelerating flow of returning migrant workers. Numbers of left-behind children in Chongqing’s rural area have consequently dropped to 1.07 million from the 1.3 million in 2010, according to Zhou Xu.

From Migrant Worker to Urban Resident

Yang Dongping, president of the 21st Century Education Development Research Institute, holds that urban acceptance of migrant workers is crucial to solving the problem of left-behind children. He advocates establishment of a public management system that allows migrant parents to bring their children to live with them in cities.

Ms. Zheng comes from Anhui Province, one of China’s largest labor-exporting provinces. She has a job as nanny in Beijing, and her husband works on a construction site. “When I saw the child I take care of each day, I would miss my own kid far away in my hometown,” Zheng said. The desire to be with her son was so acute that she stopped living with her employers, rented a half basement and brought her son to Beijing. Zheng can now look forward to seeing her son, who is studying in a nearby elementary school for children of migrant workers, in their apartment each day after she finishes work. This makes her feel she finally has a real home in the city.

Not long ago, however, the local government shut down certain unlicensed migrant schools. This worries Zheng. As she said, “If my son can’t go to school in Beijing, he will have to go back to our village in Anhui.” Although her son has free compulsory education back in their hometown, Zheng wants him near her. Being with his mom is also her son’s biggest wish.