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Being brought up by grandparents is a common experience worldwide, and by no means necessarily harmful. But China’s rapid development does make it more of a problem now than it was in the past. Unlike their parents, the left-behind children’s grandparents are often illiterate; their schooling can suffer accordingly. According to the All-China Women’s Federation, a quarter of the grandmothers who are looking after small children never attended school. Most of the rest had only primary education. In one school in Sichuan visited by Save the Children, an international charity, an 11-year-old girl spent most of the lesson caring for her infant sister. As the visitors started to leave, though, she ran up and begged them to look at her homework: she seemed torn between being in loco parentis and a normal 11-year-old.There are few studies of the health of left-behind children. But given that they account for almost half of all rural children, rural health indicators are a proxy. These are worrying: 12% of rural children under five in China are stunted (ie, are short for their age)—four times as many as in urban areas; 13% of rural children under five are anaemic, compared with 10% for urban children. 世界范围内，小孩由爷爷奶奶带大都很寻常，这对孩子也不 会造成什么伤害。然而中国的发展日新月异，比起过去，快速的发展确实带来了更多的问题。留守儿童的父母还读过书，可他们的爷爷奶奶却大多是大字不识，因此 留守儿童的教育大受影响。根据中华全国妇女联合会的调查，1/4的照看小孩的奶奶从没上过学，剩下的大多也只上过小学。国际慈善组织“拯救儿童”有关人员 参观了四川省的一所学校，发现一个11岁大的小女孩课堂上的大部分时间花在照看她那还是婴儿的妹妹。可当这些参观者行将离去的时候，小女孩却跑过来要他们 看看她做的家庭作业。一边是妹妹的“家长”，一边还只是一个11岁的小女孩，这双重身份使她备受折磨。鲜有关于留守儿童健康状况的研究。但农村儿童中大约 有一半是留守儿童，因此农村儿童的健康状况可以从侧面反映出留守儿童的健康状况。研究数据令人忧心忡忡：5岁以下的中国农村儿童中12%发育不良，即长得 不够高。这个数字是城市儿童的4倍；5岁以下的农村儿童13%患贫血，城市儿童只有10%贫血。 Little father time bomb 小小父亲是定时炸弹 Breastfeeding rates in China are low; only two in seven Chinese children are exclusively breastfed at six months, compared with half in South-East Asia and two-thirds in Bangladesh. Part of the explanation must be that so many infants are brought up by grandparents. International studies show that breastfeeding during a child’s first 1,000 days has lifetime benefits. Children who are not breastfed or get poor food early on do worse at school, are more likely to suffer from serious diseases and have worse job prospects. 母乳喂养率在中国很低。只有2/7的中国儿童在头六个月完全是 由母乳喂养，而东南亚的母乳喂养率是1/2，孟加拉国是2/3。原因之一是很多婴儿是由爷爷奶奶养大的。国际研究表明，在孩子出生的后1000天内进行母 乳喂养，将给让孩子受益终身。非母乳喂养，或者早期营养不良的孩子在学校表现更差，这些孩子更易得大病，将来不易找到好工作。 Lastly, left-behind children are vulnerable to sexual and other abuse. Back in Bijie, two more left-behind children were found dead in August. One, a disabled 15-year-old girl, had been repeatedly raped by two of her distant relatives. Fearing discovery they had murdered both her and her 12-year-old brother. 最后一点，留守儿童更易遭受性侵以及其他形式的虐待。8月份毕节又发生了一桩惨案，两个留守儿童死亡。死者之一是15岁的小女孩，两个远亲轮奸了这个小女孩。案发之后两个害怕被人发现，于是杀害了小女孩和她的12岁的弟弟。 Child abuse is distressingly common anyway. An analysis of 47 studies in Chinese and English this year estimated that over a quarter of Chinese children are physically abused at some point in their lives. The left behind are among the most vulnerable to such abuse, especially those in boarding schools, because any adults who might speak up for them are far away. In May a teacher in one such school in Gansu province in the north-west was executed for abusing 26 primary-school students. In Ningxia province in June, a teacher got life in prison for raping 12 of his pupils, 11 of whom had been left behind. 虐待儿童行为都让人见 怪不怪了。对中英两国今年发表47项文献的分析表明，超过1/4的中国儿童在他们一生中某些时段受过身体上的虐待。留守儿童更容易遭受虐待，特别是在寄宿 学校，因为能帮他们撑腰的大人都远在千里之外。今年5月，西北部甘肃省处死了一名教师，这个老师涉嫌虐待26个小学生。今年6月，宁夏省的一个教师被判终 身监禁，他涉嫌强奸12个他的学生，这些学生中11个是留守儿童。 Those left behind can be perpetrators of crime as well as victims. Earlier this year a prostitution ring was broken up in Macao. The alleged ringleader turned out to be a 16-year-old boy from Chongqing. Juvenile offences are risin in China, which may well in part be because of the increased numbers of left-behind children. Two-thirds of all Chinese juvenile offenders came from rural areas in 2010, up from half in 2000. When they are brought before the law, left-behind or migrant children are much more likely to go to jail than other children because courts are reluctant to grant probation in the absence of a guardian. In Shanghai, the children of migrant labourers get probation in only 15% of cases, compared with 63% of cases involving local juveniles. 这些留守儿童成为罪犯的可能性不比成为受 害者的可能性小。今年年初，澳门破获了一个卖淫团伙。据称，这个团伙的老鸨是一个来自重庆的16岁男孩。可能是因为留守儿童的数目正逐年增加，中国的青少 年犯罪率也正在增加。农村少年犯的在所有青少年罪犯中所占比由2000年的1/2增长到2010年的2/3。当法院审理案件时，留守儿童与打工子弟被判入 狱的可能性更大，因为法院在监护人不在场的情况下，很难判这些儿童缓刑。上海市青少年罪犯中，只有15%的外来务工人员子女犯罪获得缓刑，而上海本地人子 女犯罪，缓刑率高达63%。 Given the harm that being left behind does to children’s health, education and emotional development, it is not hard to imagine that the damage will be felt not just by the left-behind themselves but by society as a whole. The phenomenon is sufficiently recent that there is little compelling evidence of increased criminality, anti-social behaviour and so on. And adding to the burdens of the left-behind by prejudging them to be miscreants would clearly ad injustice to injury. But in other countries—South Africa, where apartheid often broke families up, is one example—being left alone has been found to be a risk factor in children turning to crime. 从 留守儿童的健康，所受教育以及情感成长几方面所受的伤害来看，不难想象，不只是留守儿童本身受到了伤害，整个社会也深受伤害。留守儿童是最新出现的一个现 象，因此尚无有利证据证明留守儿童会造成犯罪率上升，反社会行为增加等等。预先判断留守儿童将成为不法之徒，将增加其所受的不公正待遇，加重他们的负担。 但在另一个国家南非的例子表明（种族隔离制度拆散了不少家庭），留守儿童更容易犯罪。 Leaving such broader consequences aside, the decision to leave behind a child is a hard one. Why do so many migrants make it? A survey by the Centre for Child Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility, an NGO, put the question to 1,500 workers in the Pearl River Delta in the south and Chongqing in the south-west. Two-thirds said they would not have enough time to look after them while working in the city; half said it was too expensive to bring up children there. 即使暂时不考虑留守儿童问题造成的宽泛的后果，让孩子留守在家也 是一个艰难地决定。为什么这么多人最终让孩子留守在家呢？非政府组织“儿童权利与共同社会责任中心”(Center for Child Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility)展开了一项调查，该组织询问了1500名在南方珠三角以及西北部重庆工作的工人上述问题。2/3的工人说，他们没有时间边 在城市工作边照看孩子；1/2的工人说在城市抚养孩子要花的钱太多了。 The long established and valued role Chinese grandparents play in bringing up grandchildren doubtless makes the decision easier for many. And if grandparents are the solution, then leaving behind is a necessary corollary. In principle migrants might take along their grandparents rather than leaving behind their children. But the restrictions of the hukou system make that almost impossible. The hukou or household-registration document is a bit like an internal passport, giving people access to various services. When registered in the country, grandparents get a lower pension than urban dwellers—and the money is not enough for them to live in the city. 长久以来，中国的祖父母在抚养孩子中充当重要的角色，这无疑让很多人更倾向于将孩子留在家中。假如认为把孩子交给祖父母喂养是某种解决方法，那么留守儿童便 是这一解决方法产生的必然后果。理论上务工人员能够带着孩子的祖父母一起到城市生活，而不是将孩子抛给他们。但户籍制度的限制却让这种做法难以实现。户口 类似于国内的护照，人们凭借户口可以享有各式各样的服务。农村户口比城市户口享受的养老金要低，因此凭农村户口获得的退休金是不够他们在城市生活的。 The hukou system also exacerbates things by making it very hard for children registered in a rural area to get state schooling or health care in the city. Private schools that exploit the opportunity this presents are often crowded, substandard and constantly threatened with closure by city governments. On top of this vital school-leaving exams have to be sat where a child is registered. So even if children accompany their parents to the city, they are almost always sent back again at the age of 14 to prepare for the exam. 同时，户籍制度 使得留守儿童问题日益恶化。户籍制度下，只有农村户口的孩子很难进入城里的公立学校，享受城市医保也成了奢望。私立学校则人满为患，不合规范且不断遭到到 市政府关停的威胁。此外，关键的升学考试来临时，这些孩子不得不回到户籍所在地考试。即便孩子能在城市陪伴他们的父母一时，但他们最终大都在14岁的时候 被送回家乡准备升学考试。 Wanted: several million social workers 悬赏：几百万社工 Millions of parents defy the hukou system; less than a third of those questioned in the Pearl River Delta survey cited it as an issue. The objective problems of city life are harder to ignore. Many migrant labourers work 12 or more hours a day on construction sites or in export-oriented manufacturing companies. They may commute for four hours more; they may live in dormitories with no provision for children, or where children are not allowed. Understandably, most fear that they will not have enough time to look after their kids. 数百万的父母反对户籍制度；但珠三角 的受调查者中只有不足1/3觉得这是一个问题。城市生活的客观问题更难以忽视。许多外来务工者在工地上外向型制造公司一天工作12小时或以上。他们通勤的 时间可能在4小时以上；他们住的宿舍或许没条件带孩子，或者不准带孩子。可以理解，大多数家长担心他们没有足够的时间照顾孩子。 Grandma holds the fort 奶奶代人尽责 Zhao Yanjun, who is from Anhui province in eastern China but works in Fujian province most of the year, sums up the problems: “I’m really torn about this. I could go back [to Anhui] but I won’t have the opportunities and connections I have here. If I bring my son and my wife [to Fujian], one of us will have to quit to look after him, or we’ll have to hire a nanny or bring his grandparents here. Any of these choices would be a heavy burden for us.” 赵彦君（音）老家在中国东部的安徽省，一年当中大部分时间他却是在福建 省工作，赵彦君将问题总结到：“我真的左右为难，我虽然可以回安徽工作，但是在安徽一没有福建这么多的工作机会，二没有我在这边建立的关系。假如我带老婆 儿子来福建，我们两人之一就必须辞去工作，全职照顾孩子，否则就要请保姆或者叫孩子的爷爷奶奶过来照看。无论是怎么选，对我们都是一个沉重的负担。 Reform of the hukou system—already under way, in a piecemeal fashion—can address some of the problems of the left-behind and those who leave them. But given the underlying factors at work a full response will require China to build a child-welfare system almost from scratch. 户籍制度的改革正慢慢启动，改革能够解决留守儿童以及留守儿童家长的部分问题。但考虑到背后的一系列原因，全面解决留守儿童问题还需从零开始建立一套完善的儿童福利制度。 China’s government long assumed that the family would look after children’s needs, so no child-welfare system was needed. As recently as 2006, there was no nationally recognised qualification for social workers. To its credit, the government has started to make up for lost time. It has set up a pilot programme to train “child-welfare directors”, otherwise known as barefoot social workers, in five provinces. 长久以来，中国政府基于家庭将照顾儿童的角度考量，认为儿童社保系统可有可无。在2006年的时候，甚至都没有针对社会工作者的国家资格认证。值得称赞的是，政府开始亡羊补牢，已在五个省份建立了一个试点项目来培训“儿童福利指导员”，也叫做赤脚社工。 The social workers are a bit like China’s barefoot doctors: villagers trained in a few simple skills to take the social-welfare system into remote villages. Each looks after between 200 and 1,000 children. So far, the results of the pilot projects are promising. In 120 villages more than 10,000 extra children were enrolled in the state medical scheme between the start of the programme, in 2010, and 2012. The share of children who had not been registered under the hukou system and were therefore not eligible for help fell from 5% to 2%. The school drop-out rate fell by roughly the same amount. The government is expanding the pilot programme into three more provinces and twice as many villages. 社 会工作者有点像中国的赤脚医生：受过简单培训的村民将社保系统带到了偏远的乡村。每一个社工照管200到1000个孩子。迄今为止，试点项目的结果令人十 分满意。自2010年项目伊始，到2012年，120个村子的1万多名孩子被纳入了国家医疗体系。无法注册户籍的孩子往往也得不到帮助，他们的比例从5% 降到了2%。辍学率也差不多下降了3%。政府正在扩大试点项目的覆盖面，最终将覆盖8个省份，覆盖的村庄也将是现有村庄的两倍。 But this only scratches the surface. Even in its expanded form the programme will reach roughly 250,000 children, less than 0.5% of all rural left-behind children. A response proportionate to the problem would not just see such interventions hugely increased and the hukou system relaxed a great deal more; it would entail more job-creation in areas where migrants can take all their family members. 然而这只是 隔靴搔痒。即便这个项目扩大覆盖范围，也仅有25万孩子会得到救助，这也不到还不到农村留守儿童总数的0.5%。政府的行政干预力度大大增强，户籍制度也 放开了不少，但想要一劳永逸地解决留守儿童的问题还远远不够；这须要在外来务工者能照顾他们家庭成员的地方创造更多的工作。 At its heart, the problem of the left-behind is one of misplaced hopes. Like so many parents, China’s migrants are deferring pleasure now (that of raising their children) for the hope of a better life later (to be bought with the money they earn). One result has been the stunning growth of cities and the income they generate. Another has been a vast disruption of families—and the children left behind are bearing the burden of loss. 说到底，留守儿童的问题反映出人们错位的希望。与中国许多的父母一样，中国的外来务 工人员推迟了养育孩子过程中的快乐，期待以后能用他们赚来的钱过上更好地生活。城市因此以令人炫目的速度增长，他们的收入也随着增加。但同时，不少外来务 工人员的家庭随之破裂，留守儿童也承担了沉重的损失。 From the print edition: Briefing Translated by : stonecome Proofread by : 卓然 ,仰望,Ennis 原文链接 http://www./news/briefing/21674712-children-bear-disproportionate-share-hidden-cost-chinas-growth-little-match-children |
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