Urban dysfunction: child abuse increases in cities

(Ecns.cn) -- The number of juveniles falling victim to domestic violence is now growing faster in China's cities than in its rural areas, according to a report released by the Beijing Children's Legal Aid and Research Center.

The center investigated 429 domestic violence cases between January 2008 and June 2012 in which juveniles were victims. It found that 51.75 percent of the cases in the first half of this year had taken place in cities, up 6.75 percent from the same period last year.

The result was surprising: It had long been taken for granted that violence against children was more prominent in the countryside, where parents are less educated and more influenced by traditional ideas such as "spare the rod, spoil the child."

Yet intensified rural-urban migration and the mounting pressures of city life have caused the situation to change, China Youth Daily reports.

On October 8, the father of a six-year-old girl who died after six hours of physical punishment was detained for the charge of abuse. It was just one among many other similar cases this year.

On July 8, a 13-year-old girl in Qingdao, Shandong Province, jumped off a building and killed herself, leaving behind a three-page suicide note accusing her parents of violence and abuse.

A policeman who handled the case said the girl was found next to a tree with contusions and abrasions all over her body. At first nobody believed that her father was the murderer, but it was later determined that he was in fact the cause of it, the policeman said.

Child abuse has become a knotty problem in recent years, because it's hard to detect and can easily result in tragedy, said Zhang Xuemei, deputy director of the Beijing Children's Legal Aid and Research Center.

Outdated modes of raising children are not the problem, she added. Instead, unhappy marriages, the pressures of daily life and family dysfunction are the major causes of the violence.

According to the center's report, 52.68 percent of the cases occurred in families that had migrated from one place to another or had gone through a marriage crisis.

However, only 1.4 percent of the abused children reported it to the police, according to Wei Yanli, a researcher at the center. Most people living in the neighborhoods also chose to keep silent, even though they knew the children were being badly abused, she added.

Experts warn that family violence is liable to result in criminal behavior and increase the probability of juvenile delinquency.

Yet despite the fact that violence against children has become a social concern, there still isn't sufficient legal support for those who suffer from it, according to China Youth Daily.

The General Principles of Civil Law and the Law on the Protection of Minors stipulate that courts can revoke custody from any parent or guardian for child abuse or neglect, but such action is seldom carried out.

In most cases, even if domestic violence against children has been reported, the police can do little about it. Because of a lack of facilities to shelter such children, authorities can only send them back home, where they will likely be subjected to further abuse.

Zhang suggests that the government should accelerate the process of lawmaking so that children dealing with frequent abuse will be better protected in China. Meanwhile, the government must build more facilities to shelter children when they need urgent help.