Opinion | Left-behind children a poignant reminder of the cost of China’s development
Lijia Zhang says in the run-up to Children’s Day on June 1, China should take action to help the millions of children living away from their migrant worker parents
Every year, millions of urban children in China enjoy a day off on Children’s Day, spending it in parks or playgrounds, often accompanied by their parents. For children of migrant workers such as Jiachao, however, the occasion reminds them of their disadvantaged position.
This year, with Children’s Day around the corner, my thoughts once again turned to this group of children. In the past three years, I have spent many weeks at a picturesque village named Jidao in Guizhou province to research a book on left-behind children. Here, driven by poverty and lack of job opportunity, more than half of the able-bodied villagers have left for the city, joining the biggest tidal wave of migration in human history.
These children are, in a sense, orphaned by China’s economic miracle