These children victims were left behind by their parents, who are migrant workers and have to work in other cities all year long to earn money and support their families. They lived with their aging grandparents and struggled to work before and after school time to earn some pocket money for snacks.  

The children worker phenomenon is not rare in Yanghui village where the tragedy took place. The lack of government regulation is part of the reason behind, but on the other, “if these children have their parents around and being taken good care of, we will not have such a big tragedy,” Yang Youji, the village party chief, was quoted as saying.

According to the 2005 population census, there were 120 million farmers who worked or did business in cities, and the number of children they left behind amounted to 20 million. 88.2% left-behind children could only contact their parents by phone, among whom 53.5% of children talked with their parents in less than three minutes.

Tong Dahuan, a Chinese blogger in Tianya [<http://blog.tianya.cn/blogger/post_show.asp?BlogID=350817&PostID=20273349&idWriter=0&Key=0>

], pointed out another social issue in his fire-cracker incident related blog post Who Should Apologize for the Tragedy of the Left-behind Children.

“前两年，来自北京、上海等地的有关调查即显示，新移民二代的犯罪率是当地户籍青少年的三倍！留守儿童和流动儿童的悲剧命运，正在引领着我们走向一个不可知的未来。” In the past 2 years, surveys conducted in cities like Beijing and Shanghai showed that the crime rate of the second generation of migrant workers (the children of migrant workers) is three times higher than their local peers who are residents certificates holders. The bitter destiny of left-behind children and migrant population is leading us to an unpredictable future.

Tong argued that it is the unfair education system that resulted in this tragedy. “中国数以亿计的农村人到城市打工，他们的孩子经常被城市的学校排除在外，或被收更高的学费，城市里也没有专门供这些孩子受教育的非正式学校（打工子弟学校常常被教育主管部门以教育条件不达标为由围追堵截甚至赶尽杀绝）。更有甚者，在户籍加学籍的高考报考制度下，即使打工子弟历尽千辛万苦过五关斩六将在父母打工所在地读完了高中，他们也将面临无处高考的命运。这一切导致大量孩子过早被迫与父母分离，成为“没爹没妈”留守儿童。”

Hundreds of millions of Chinese farmers go to work in cities, but their children are often excluded by the cities they work in, or they are charged with higher tuition fees. There are no schools that are set specially for these children of migrant workers (migrant children schools are frequently shut down by education authorities in the name of substandard education conditions). Furthermore, under the dual systems of the residentss registration plus student registration certificate (which shows the region the student geographically belongs to), even if the migrant worker children finish senior high school with great efforts and hardship, they can still be possibly denied a place to partake in the national college entrance exam. All these unfavorable factors lead to their separation from their migrant workers parents at an early age, who later become left-behind children with virtually no parents.

Tong said he had been criticizing the government’s outdated residents certificate system and education system since 1997, but there seemed almost no progress on these two issues.

“现行户籍与教育制度，已经严重违反了人权、人道、人伦，也违反了我们1990年签署、1991年全国人大批准、1992年3月1日起即对我国生效的联合国《儿童国际公约》” China’s current residents registration system and education system have seriously infringed upon its citizens’s human rights, human morality, as well as the UN Convention on the Rights of Children which the Government signed in 1990 and the National People’s Congress approved in 1991 and which took effect since March 1 1992.

“请问，不让孩子就地平等地接受教育和高考，是为了孩子的最大利益吗？用户籍制度生生将孩子和父母拆散，这样的分离符合儿童的最大利益吗?” I want to ask, is it for the ultimate interest of children that the government doesn’t give children equal opportunities to receive education and take part in the national college entrance exam? Is it for the ultimate interest of children that the government separates children from their parents with the tool of residents registration system?

Another Tianya Blogger, Li Hui <http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/free/1/1741538.shtml>

, questioned why the children workers are always the left-behind children.

“为什么黑童工都是留守儿童？这背后，不仅是一个非法雇佣童工的问题，更深层次的原因，是城乡二元分化，以及由此导致的教育资源发展严重不均衡。”Why the illegal children workers are always the left-behind children? What underlies this issue is not only the illegal employment of children workers, but more profoundly, it is an issue caused by China’s rural-urban dual structure, and the serious imbalance of education resources.

Many Chinese netizns also voiced their opinions after they read the Southern Weekend investigation.

Many blamed the residents registration system as the root of this tragedy.

Yanchenyu [http://www.infzm.com/content/37586]

“户籍制度是造成留守儿童的根源，城市人口享受农民工带来的繁荣，却不为他们的健康提供保障，不为他们的小孩提供教育。” The residents registration system is the root cause of the left-behind children tragedy. Urban population are enjoying the prosperity brought about by migrant workers, but they don’t provide due protection on migrant workers’ safety, neither do they provide education to migrant workers’ children.

Another netizen questioned the role of law enforcement.

li101947 [http://www.infzm.com/content/37586] “已经有多少儿童遭受了苦难？还有多少儿童将要遭受苦难？难道就不能有组织、制度保障他们的权益吗？法律的执行怎么了？”How many children have suffered the tragedy? How many more are going to suffer the tragedy? Can’t there be organizations and regulations to safeguard these children’s rights and benefits? What have law enforcement done?

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[ Published on http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/11/25/china-children-who-are-left-behind/]