What are the Chinese laws on child abuse?

Answer 1

While China's 1991 Child Protection Law, 1987 Civil Law and other relevant bylaws define the deprivation of parental custody, there are no specific provisions on how to implement these laws. It is especially unclear about which department is responsible for caring for children if parental custody is removed, and what precautions should be taken.In recent years, a series of child abuse cases resulting in severe injuries and in some cases death provoked a public outcry demanding reform. These cases have been described as a wake-up call for the government to create child custody supervision bylaws.On Monday, a seven-year-old girl in a village near Xi'an city, central China was reported to have starved to death when her mother, suspected to have a mental disorder, abandoned the girl alone at home. Last June in southeast China's Nanjing city a drug addict mother locked her two daughters, aged one and three, at home while the father was away, resulting in them starving to death. The mother was sentenced to life in prison last September.Since May last year, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has set up experimental child protection stations in 20 regions in Jiangsu, Henan and Sichuan provinces, based on existing homeless child protection mechanisms and aiming to build a new system of child protection and family care interventions.It was reported that the second session of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee will discuss legislative planning, and the committee is expected to make changes to the Criminal Procedure Law through this year's legislative working programme. It is hoped that new policies focusing on child protection and intervention will be part of the process.