Crackdown on violence at rehabs

Staff who resort to violence while treating Internet addicts at rehabilitation centers are to be banned from continuing in their jobs.

Zhao Jing, director of a national project responsible for training and appraising psychological instructors for teenage Internet addicts, said the center will fail those who resort to violence.

Licenses will be revoked by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security if violent conduct is found, Zhao was quoted in yesterday's China Youth Daily as saying.

China began to license psychological instructors for teenage Internet addicts in 2010 and now has 1,567.

Concerns over Internet addiction have resulted in increasing numbers of treatment centers in the past few years.

In 2010, two instructors were jailed after a 15-year-old was beaten to death at a facility in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.