Left behind:Nine-year-old girl travels long distance to see her parents

Starting in 2010, nine-year-old child Little Xi’s parents moved to Putian City, Fujian Province to work. Little Xi was left behind in Nanchong City, Sichuan Province. Because Little Xi missed her parents, on Sunday August 30, 2015 she took ¥1,000 and her residence permit, traveled more than 2,000 kilometers, and at 11:30 p.m. on Monday August 31, 2015 arrived at her parents’ dormitory.

Little Xi’s father couldn’t believe his daughter traveled alone by train to Fujian. Little Xi’s mother wrote in a microblog post: “You gave your mother and father the most important lesson. We will deeply reflect on this. We haven’t paid nearly enough attention to you. Please forgive us.” A few days ago, Little Xi’s parents set about transferring her to a local school. After this incident, they don’t intend to leave her behind to attend school, they will bring her to Putian to live with them and go to school.

Because Guizhou Province’s industrial development is relatively backward, there are limited employment opportunities and a large number of families migrate to find work. This phenomenon results in a large number of children being left behind in villages by their parents. Relevant statistics demonstrate: In Guizhou Province in 2013 there were 6.58 million middle and primary school students. This has resulted in 2.4 million rural children being left behind.

In recent years, in Bijie City, Guizhou Province and other places, there have been continual incidents involving left-behind rural children. This has caused the problem of left-behind children in Guizhou Province to attract national attention: On the morning of November 16, 2012 in Bijie City, an old woman who collects garbage found five dead street children next to a demolished construction site. According to Bijie officials’ disclosure, the dead were five boys ages 9-13 who were the local offspring of three brothers. The police autopsy results showed that the five boys were hiding in the trash fire heating system to get warm, and died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

In December 2013, five Bijie children were let out of school and hit and killed on the road by an agricultural vehicle. In April 2014, 12 Bijie students were violently raped by a local teacher, the youngest was only 8 years old. On June 9 of this year four Bijie children ingested agricultural pesticide and died from poisoning. It’s suspected that they committed suicide. All these children were “left behind” while their parents migrated for work long-term.

Their parents had to go to the city to work for a living, and suffered discriminatory treatment at the bottom of society. And because residential ID limitations, their children couldn’t go with them to the city and have normal rights to attend school and get medical treatment.

According to the 2013 All-China Women’s Federation “China’s Left-Behind Rural Children, Rural-Urban Child Migration Situation Research Study,” there are more than 60 million rural children left behind in mainland China. Many of the children only see their parents once a year.
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