CRI听力:Experts Call for Improvement of Child Welfare after Orphanage Fire

Forty-eight-year-old Yuan Lihai is the owner of an unregistered orphanage that caught fire last Friday. She had been taking abandoned children into her home for 26 years.

Most of the children suffered from congenital diseases, ranging from cleft lips, infantile paralysis and albinism to mental disorders.

Yuan used the money she earned from working as a street vendor to single-handedly care for 34 children. She has been hailed by media reports as the "Mother with a Loving Heart."

But according to China's Adoption Law, Yuan is not qualified to adopt children since she doesn't have the economic means to care for so many disabled children. Yuan says she had hoped the local government could help her.

"Actually, I can't afford to raise so many children. If the children were in government-funded orphanages, they could have a much better life than they have now at my home."

Ding Baoyong, a civil rights lawyer at Guoyin Law Firm in Zhenshou, Henan Province, says although Yuan's "foster home" was illegal, the local government apparently turned a blind eye to it.

"It's high time to enact laws on minors' welfare to ensure children's rights are duly protected. Only when enforceable laws—namely a child welfare law—are enacted will the authorities be able to help 'kindness mothers' such as Yuan Lihai."

It is reported that some 100,000 children are abandoned every year in China. The government encourages families to adopt orphans and abandoned children to give them the best possible living environment. Meanwhile, many Chinese cities have also mapped out plans to improve child welfare in the coming three to five years, including reducing the number of homeless children and providing them with adequate shelter.

However, Wang Zhenyao, a former civil affairs official and now an academic at Beijing Normal University, says the Chinese government still falls short when it comes to protecting children's welfare.

"The Lankao fire is not an isolated incident. Without a functioning child welfare system, tragedies are likely to happen in other places too. In my opinion, the tragedy is partly a result of China's inadequate child welfare system."

Wang echoes child welfare laws and bureaus, long established in other countries, are still not on the agenda in China. They are a fundamental guarantee of child welfare and without them, child welfare is little more than a series of well-meant phrases.

Wang says the fire has sounded an alarm that we urgently need to mend the defects in our social security system and provide better care for orphaned and abandoned children.

For CRI, I'm Su Yi.