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Latest update: 17/04/2008
A little sunshine for the children of Chinese prisoners
Every year, China incarcerates around 400,000 people, whose children are left on their own. This is where the Sun Village steps in. (Report: Julie Calderon, Heriberto Araujo and Forrest Shen)
Click on "Play video" to watch Julie Calderon, Heriberto Araujo and Forrest Shen report on the Sun Village in China, then feel free to leave a reaction by clicking on the "react" button below.
Gao and Mei are respectively 6 and 15 years old. Their parents, both members of Falun Gong, a spiritual sect banned in China, were arrested and are now awaiting trial. Meanwhile, the two children will have to look after themselves in a special centre for prisoners’ children, located 100km outside Beijing.
The Sun Village is a unique institution in China. Each year, some 400,000 sentences are handed down across the country, including executions and life imprisonments. In most cases, convicts leave a family behind. For the numerous children separated from their relatives, the Sun Village is the only option left.
China’s unwanted orphans
The centre currently shelters about 140 children. Director and founder Shuqin Zhang, says she knows the case histories of each occupant. A former prison warden, Shuqin came up with the idea of setting up the Sun Village during a routine visit to the families of female prison inmates.
Yet, the centre does not only house children. A former prisoner herself, Liao recovered her self-respect thanks to the Sun Village. Like most others in her situation, she felt ostracised upon leaving jail. Handicapped by her past, she was unable to find work, until the centre offered to employ her. Today, she looks after children aged 2 to 5, whose parents have been executed. With no chance of finding foster parents, they are known as the damned orphans.
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Comments (3)
Help
What can we do to help these children and others like them? I am constantly baffled as to why other countries dont step in to help these people.Please let me know how we can help them. [
Contradictions
China fascinates me and at the same time it absolutely terrifies me! Why? China is one of the oldest civilizations. It has a culture, even past the “cultural revolution”, a history and traditions that completely overwhelm me. Even in its recent history, China is, in many things, a sight for sore eyes, BUT all this comes with a heavy toll! China wants to open up, they say! I ask, to what extent? Is this modern china, where in Beijing, people copy the “European way of life” and live in a bubble? People say, China is too big, they cannot take care of everyone. I agree, but turning your face away from the problem, like they did in Tibet, hoping it self-resolves, isn’t the right way to deal with it! We, Europeans, are not exactly a good example, in fact, I feel that instead of Chinese politicians learning with their and our past errors, we are learning with them. Of course Democracy rules in Europe, and no such thing happens in China. Even so, we should never forget, that opposable to Chinese proverb who says “Rats will gave to birth rats!”, I believe no one should pay for their parents mistakes or for their culture, ethnicity or race, in China and or anywhere else in the world.
please let me know how to help them
Please send me contact information of the person in charge of the center. I would like to help. I appreciate your report to bring the plight of these innocent children to light.