Two girls， aged 1 and 2， were found dead in an apartment in Nanjing， capital of east China’s Jiangsu Province， on June 21. According to the forensic report， they died of dehydration and starvation. The report also stated that， based on the condition of the bodies， the girls had been dead for more than two weeks before they were found.

On September 18， a court in Nanjing sentenced Le Yan， the 21-year-old mother of the girls， to life in prison for intentional homicide after she left her daughters unattended.

Le told the judge that she locked her daughters inside the bedroom of her apartment on the fifth floor with some bread， cake and a bottle of water when she left home in late April. Then she went to places close by to take narcotics.

According to the court， it was only when the police detained Le the same day the children’s bodies were discovered that she finally learnt of their passing.

Child neglect

Le had lived with Li Wenbin， the biological father of her younger daughter. However， in February， Li was sentenced to a six-month prison term for providing a venue for drug abuse. Li and Le are not married.

In light of the results of evaluations on Le’s mental health status， she suffers from mental disorders brought on by taking psychoactive substances， but she still has full criminal liability.

Le， who was herself born out of wedlock and raised by her grandparents， ran away from home at the age of 16， becoming addicted to narcotics later. At one time she supported herself by working at nightclubs. She doesn’t know who the father of her older daughter is.

The last person to hear the cries of the two children was 82-year-old Wang Guanghong， the great-grandmother of Le’s younger daughter， who visited the children to feed them on May 17. Unable to open the apartment door without a key， Wang heard the pleas for food from the elder girl. However， later that day， Le showed up at Wang’s home and assured her that she was going home to feed her children.

As the media dug deeper into Le’s actions， people sympathetic to Le’s daughters have become increasingly upset after hearing evidence that the tragedy could have been avoided if there was a substitute care system.

The local police station and community committee had been aware of Le’s neglect for a long time before the death of the two girls. Le’s elder child ran out to beg for food twice， in March and April， after Le left home—something she would do for days at a time.

Starting March 4， the community committee gave Le a weekly subsistence allowance， food and free cleaning service. A police officer was also put in charge of checking on the children’s condition when he was able to find Le. Neighbors would deliver food to the girls when the door had not been locked.

After 78-year-old Ding Chunxiu， another of the younger daughter’s great-grandmothers， found that the girls could starve to death as they were sometimes locked inside the apartment for days， she begged the head of the community committee to send the girls to an orphanage. The orphanage rejected her request on the ground that they were not orphans.

Hollow regulations

The tragic death of two young girls as a result of parental neglect shocked the country and sparked calls for the establishment of more reliable procedures to remove children from abusive households.

Article 53 of China’s Law on the Protection of Minors stipulates that when guardians of minors refuse to perform their duties or infringe upon the lawful rights and interests of said minors under their guardianship and fail to mend their ways after education， the court may designate new guardians for said minors. The disqualified guardians shall continue to bear the cost of child support according to law.

The General Principles of the Civil Law， which devotes a section to guardianship， also carries a similar clause.

However， such clauses have never been quoted in Chinese courts.

Chen Huiqi， a lawyer in southwest China’s Guizhou Province， has been petitioning a local court for the termination of Yang Shihan’s custody over his five children. Yang was sentenced to 18 months in jail on charges of intentional injury in July.

The victim of his five-year-long streak of physical abuse was his 11-year-old daughter. Police investigations found that Yang poured hot water over his daughter’s head last October， which resulted in severe scalding on her scalp.

Chen， who expressed his worries about the girl’s fate after her father is released from jail， said that what impedes the termination of parents’ guardianship in Chinese courts is the legal gray area concerning who is to initiate judicial proceedings in such cases and who will be selected as a substitute guardian.

The clause on the termination of guardianship in the Law on the Protection of Minors says that the court may， upon application by the persons or units concerned， disqualify parents from being guardians and designate other persons as guardians according to law.

Han Jingjing， a senior research fellow with the Beijing Juvenile Legal Aid and Research Center， said that the clause fails to clearly define “the persons concerned” or those that could be designated as a guardian and it also fails to specify responsibilities of guardians.

Han said that as a result， it is not possible to properly implement the clause and minors are not effectively protected from abuse at the hands of their parents.

“No government department or social organization is held responsible when nothing is done to stop abuse，” she told Beijing Times.

During an interview in the wake of the Nanjing girls’ death， Li Bo， an official in charge of child protection at the Ministry of Civil Affairs， said that the ministry would allocate temporary shelters for children when they are found living with guardians who are unable to take care of them.

Meanwhile， Li admitted that China lacks a clear judicial procedure for the transfer of guardianship.

Shang Xiaoyuan， a professor at Beijing Normal University and a long-time observer of child protection practices in China， said that to effectively protect children from abuse， China needs to prioritize setting up authorized agencies that can take care of children taken from neglectful parents.

An anonymous worker with a shelter for the homeless under the Ministry of Civil Affairs told Beijing Times that although shelters take care of many children who run away from home due to abusive or incapable parents， they are not ideal foster care givers as homeless adults in various conditions also live there.

The emphasis on children’s obedience to their parents in China’s traditional culture also hinders the transfer of guardianship in the country. In a society with a saying that “dutiful sons are the product of rods，” many parents use mild corporal punishment to discipline their children. Many consider beating your own children a household affair and something that should not be interfered with by outsiders.

Gu Feipeng， a social worker who has helped single-parent families for a long time， told Beijing Evening News that people don’t report child abuse to the police when they see their neighbors beating their children and even upon receiving such a report， police officers are unlikely to detain any parents to investigate the possibility of intentional injury.

Gu said that traditional ideas like these are harming child protection and are inconsistent with rapidly changing family structures in China.

“In a transitional society， we see a surge of children born out of wedlock and living in single-parent families. The old social support network based on relatives and friends is collapsing and more and more people are living next to total strangers. If the reliability of government departments and our social safety net are not strengthened， no one can guarantee what happened to the girls in Nanjing won’t be repeated，” Gu said.