Two young children are left chained up on a building site in Guangzhou in southern China while their parents work. The
small boy and his sister, aged three and four, are restrained by heavy
chains so they cannot run off or be taken away by strangers. The
children, whose parents are believed to be poor migrant workers, have
been seen to cry with frustration at their limited movement.
Residents living nearby said the children's parents are
from southern China's Hunan Province, and do
odd building work in their village. It is too
dangerous for them to take the youngsters into the construction site
while they work, so they are forced to leave them in chains to keep them
safe.
The children's father said he and his wife 'know it's not right' to leave them chained up.
'My wife
cried many times [over] this,' he said, 'but we really don't have a choice. It's so
difficult working outside, and our only hope is to bring them up
quickly.'
The harrowing scene demonstrates the grinding poverty experienced by many families in parts of China.
Some parents are unable to afford to have their children, or disabled relatives, looked after while they try to make a living. Last month pictures revealed the plight of a 13-year-old girl, Jiang
Manqi, who is regularly left tethered to a moped in Fuzhou, in China's Fujian province by her grandfather so he can work recycling rubbish. Her family cannot afford to seek medical help to treat the
teenager's epilepsy, so she was tied to the bike so her relative could look
after her.
Meanwhile in Nanjing, eastern China, a woman has kept her mentally ill son
chained in a rom for the past 21 years. Hong Chunlin, 37, spends most of his time
shackled by his wrist and lying in bed. He is cared for by his 71-year-old mother Chen
Jiufang, who resorted to the drastic measure after he became
violent.
