Through a series of reports on “Caring for Factual Orphans”, we have promoted the joint participation of various social forces, and finally formed the 2015 National People’s Congress proposal on “Factual Orphans”. Promote the revision of the minor protection law. At the two sessions of Guangdong Province in 2016, Guangdong Province officially included “de facto orphans” in the social security system.
On July 10, 2019, the Ministry of Civil Affairs held a press conference and announced the “Opinions on Further Strengthening the Protection of Factual Unsupported Children” jointly issued by 12 departments. This is the first time that my country has issued special opinions on strengthening the protection of “de facto orphans”.
In December and July 2019, 12 departments jointly issued the “Opinions on Further Strengthening the Protection of Factual Unsupported Children.” From January 1, 2020, the de facto unsupported child protection system will be fully implemented.
Factual orphans, the official name is “Factually Unsupported Children”, which means that both parents are eligible for severe disability, serious illness, imprisonment, compulsory isolation for drug rehabilitation, and other restrictions Free measures, a child who is missing from one of the circumstances; or one of the parents is dead or missing, and the other is a child who is severely disabled, seriously ill, in custody, compulsory isolation for drug rehabilitation, other measures that restrict personal freedom, or one of the circumstances of missing .
The investigation data of the Ministry of Civil Affairs shows that according to incomplete statistics, there are currently about 500,000 “de facto orphans” in the country. Among them, there are about 220,000 in the first category above, and about 280,000 in the second category.
This article is from WeChat official account:CC Forum (ID: ccjt2014) ,Author: Xue Yue, title figure from: Vision China
Xue Le: Guangdong Radio and Television Station reporter, participated in the founding of China’s first fund named after a TV news column-“Follow Love Today
Hello everyone! Before the official speech begins, I want everyone to watch a video.
The boy on the screen is called Pan Zhijun, who I met during an interview in 2014. He was 13 years old at the time and lived in Xinfeng County, Shaoguan, Guangdong. The disheveled man sitting on the ground is Pan Zhijun’s mother, who suffers from a serious mental illness. The first time he saw Xiao Zhijun was that Xiao Zhijun was chasing his mother to feed the whole yard, and his mother was like a frightened child, constantly backing away. Pan Zhijun’s father suffers from a serious mental illness, and he cannot take care of himself. Since childhood, Zhijun did not know what is fatherly love or maternal love. The only person who lives with him is his grandfather who is always sick in bed. Going to school during the day, going back after school, taking care of father, mother and grandfather, this is all about the life of 13-year-old Pan Zhijun. Grandpa burst into tears when he saw us, and said repeatedly: This child is suffering!
The entire income of Zhijun’s family is a few hundred yuan per month for the disabled for his father and mother. Because the family is poor, Zhijun goes to school two years later than his children of the same age. He is higher than all the students in the class. At one end, his classmates called him stupid. But Zhijun studied very hard, because he couldn’t bear to use electricity at night. Every night after Zhijun took care of his grandfather, father and mother, he would sneak back to the school corridor and go to study under the dim light. I asked Zhijun, what do you want to do when you grow up? Zhijun told me that he wanted to be an engineer and repair the road because the road in front of his house was really bad. As long as the road is repaired, he can take his grandfather to a better place for treatment.
What a sensible kid this is, I especially want to help him. The first thing that comes to mind is a situation as difficult as Zhijun. Is the local civil affairs department still unaware of it?
With questions, I found the County Civil Affairs Bureau. When I mentioned the name Pan Zhijun, the comrades of the Civil Affairs Bureau who was in charge of receiving us immediately told us about the difficulties of Zhijun’s family. They knew very well. Then why not help him? The comrade from the Civil Affairs Bureau said his parents are still there. What kind of logic is this? Could it be said that children with parents have difficulties, so we don’t need help? Comrades from the Civil Affairs Bureau hurriedly explained to us: According to the existing laws and regulations, in addition to severely ill children, most of the social welfare guarantees for minors are orphans. The so-called orphans are based on the death of both parents. Pan Zhijun’s His parents are still there, and he can’t get the corresponding assistance. If we help him, it is called embezzlement of the orphan special relief fund.
When I walked out of the Civil Affairs Bureau, I didn’t even have the courage to go back to the dilapidated house and face Pan Zhijun. I felt as if I owed him, or that our society owed him.
There are still many children like Pan Zhijun. One of their parents died, the other disappeared, some were sentenced to severe sentences and sent to prison, some became vegetative, or had severe mental illness, or Severely disabled and unable to take care of themselves. In fact, this group of children are not supported by their parents. Some are like Xiao Zhijun. They have to carry the whole family at a young age. They are in distress, but cannot be included in social welfare. They have A common name is Factual Orphan.
Starting from the story of Pan Zhijun, the “Focus on Today” section of Guangdong Radio and Television Station where I work and I began to continuously report on factual orphans. We used 35 articles to tell the stories of 15 factual orphans. News reports have caused a strong response in the society. Many people have asked for donations to help these special children. The donation reached hundreds of thousands in one go. We want to use this donation to help more children.
Then the problem comes, because it is not included in the social welfare security, the civil affairs department or the Women’s Federation, etc. have not registered the factual orphans, and the donation does not know where to donate, and no department is willing to accept. There is no way we can only find help from the people. We found the Guangdong Charity T-shirt Association for Orphans and mobilized hundreds of volunteers on the Internet. They went to Heyuan County of Guangdong Province and Xuwen County of Zhanjiang respectively, and found 195 A factual orphan gave each of them a bursary of 3,000 yuan.
We also distributed the same bursary to Pan Zhijun. In 2015, the teacher from the county school told me that the road in front of Zhijun’s house was repaired. I called Pan Zhijun as soon as possible and said that the road was repaired. We want you to accompany grandpa to Guangzhou for treatment, but Zhijun But he told me that Grandpa passed away two days before the Spring Festival, and he lost the only relative who could talk to him.