The Shame of China
June 6th 2008 01:56
By Fletcher Diamentis.
As night falls, the children in the village are playing and laughing. In the rooms above, their unwanted new born sisters moan quietly. In the morning, they will be gone. Most of the orphanages in China have barely enough money for cots and beds for these children, let alone enough food for all of them. Only 4,000 children in China make it out of these grim conditions each year. The rest…gone forever.
In China, female offspring’s are treated as a second class to boys. Although for many girls their arrival is greeted with happiness, there are others who lives are never even acknowledged. Many girls are abandoned by parents, who perhaps wanted a boy. Some families may not be able to afford another child, or many families live in a village with too many girls and they have to be taken away. These baby girls have no hope in their lives. Their future is extremely bleak and they long to be adopted one day. The only problem is, the adopters don’t want a girl, they want a boy so he can work and earn the family money. These girls are forgotten in orphanages and if they don’t die before the age of ten, they are sold as prostitutes. So, to compare a girl with a boy, would be like comparing a filthy pest and a cute little puppy dog.
Orphanages in China are over crowded and only one woman is on hand to care for the many children placed in her care each day, including the other children who have been there for a couple of years. That one woman can only do so much for every one of them. Before going home, she props a bottle against the mouth of each baby and changes them. These tiny babies are far too young to be strong enough to feed themselves; they are only a couple of days old. If however, the older ones do manage to get a gulp or so, the mixture is thick gruel which does not contain the nutrition that they need. In result to this, they are very weak. When a child looks weak or unwell, they are placed in a room called the “dying room”. 1000 children die in that room each year. Most being girls. If only there was just one other woman at hand, this figure of deaths would hopefully be less.
China calls ‘their’ children the ‘flowers of the motherland’. This expression means the children are the hope of the future. Very few people care about the lives of these defenceless babies in the hands of those carers. These children will never know love and happiness and because they die before they can every crawl in the “dying room”. Their lives end in misery and pain. China is a proud country, yet they will not seek outside help for these hideously treated orphans. China can not explain why girls and women are not treated as equals to men. If“China’s” children are the hope for the future, then China should be urged for support and care from other countries.
As night falls, the children in the village are playing and laughing. In the rooms above, their unwanted new born sisters moan quietly. In the morning, they will be gone. Most of the orphanages in China have barely enough money for cots and beds for these children, let alone enough food for all of them. Only 4,000 children in China make it out of these grim conditions each year. The rest…gone forever.
In China, female offspring’s are treated as a second class to boys. Although for many girls their arrival is greeted with happiness, there are others who lives are never even acknowledged. Many girls are abandoned by parents, who perhaps wanted a boy. Some families may not be able to afford another child, or many families live in a village with too many girls and they have to be taken away. These baby girls have no hope in their lives. Their future is extremely bleak and they long to be adopted one day. The only problem is, the adopters don’t want a girl, they want a boy so he can work and earn the family money. These girls are forgotten in orphanages and if they don’t die before the age of ten, they are sold as prostitutes. So, to compare a girl with a boy, would be like comparing a filthy pest and a cute little puppy dog.
Orphanages in China are over crowded and only one woman is on hand to care for the many children placed in her care each day, including the other children who have been there for a couple of years. That one woman can only do so much for every one of them. Before going home, she props a bottle against the mouth of each baby and changes them. These tiny babies are far too young to be strong enough to feed themselves; they are only a couple of days old. If however, the older ones do manage to get a gulp or so, the mixture is thick gruel which does not contain the nutrition that they need. In result to this, they are very weak. When a child looks weak or unwell, they are placed in a room called the “dying room”. 1000 children die in that room each year. Most being girls. If only there was just one other woman at hand, this figure of deaths would hopefully be less.
China calls ‘their’ children the ‘flowers of the motherland’. This expression means the children are the hope of the future. Very few people care about the lives of these defenceless babies in the hands of those carers. These children will never know love and happiness and because they die before they can every crawl in the “dying room”. Their lives end in misery and pain. China is a proud country, yet they will not seek outside help for these hideously treated orphans. China can not explain why girls and women are not treated as equals to men. If“China’s” children are the hope for the future, then China should be urged for support and care from other countries.
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