An alleged child molestation incident in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region involving 12 girls has once again shed light on the plight of China's 60 million children left behind by parents who are migrant workers.
The 12 girls, aged from 3 to 5, had allegedly been molested by their teacher, Huang Zhenxin, for over a year at a kindergarten before police arrested and detained him in April 2014, Wu Hui, a lawyer for one of the girls, told the Global Times Monday.
Huang frequently molested the 12 girls at his office and in the playground from 2013 to April 2014, and he put the girls on a sofa, took off their pants and sexually assaulted them, The Beijing News reported Monday.
Huang was tried before the Yinchuan Intermediate People's Court for rape and child molestation in January, but the court has yet to decide on the case.
"Huang faces the death penalty," Wu said.
Eleven of the 12 girls were left-behind children, meaning children left to relatives by their parents who found jobs elsewhere.
Records from the All-China Women's Federation show there are 61 million left-behind children in China, accounting for 22 percent of minors.
Most of them live in rural areas with their grandparents and are more prone to illness and accidents.
Media have frequently reported the plight of these children, with the latest case involving the death of four children in Bijie, Southwest China's Guizhou Province who killed themselves by drinking pesticide in early June.
Wu said that the girls suffered from vulva injuries, and that they remain traumatized.
"The girl I represented still has nightmares and her eyes are often glazed," Wu said, adding that she was unwilling to see any male strangers.
Lacking proper sex education and enough parental interaction are blamed for molestations of left-behind children, said Wu, who has represented victims in several cases.
"Left-behind children are less capable of dealing with difficulties and emergencies than other children due to a lack of parental care, as most of them either choose to escape or become overly aggressive," Li Yifan, an education professor at Beijing Normal University, told the Global Times.
About 15 percent of left-behind children have been hospitalized for injuries and diseases, much higher than other children, according to the 2015 China Family Development Report of the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
Li said that the growing number of left-behind children will cause more social problems if not dealt with more quickly.
