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Last week saw a spate of drowning deaths, and in most of the cases the victims were youngsters. Incidentally, such accidents rise sharply during the summer holidays.
The Guangdong center for disease control and prevention estimates that 4,400 people drown in Guangdong province alone every year, and most of them are minors. According to World Health Organization's data, drowning is the leading cause of accidental death of children between 1 and 14 years in China.
Repeated warnings from schools and the media have failed to lower the drowning rate in China, exposing the loopholes in children's protection, especially in rural areas.
In 2007, a report by Safe Kids Worldwide, an international children protection NGO, said drowning was the cause of 57 percent of the accidental deaths of children aged 1 to 14 years between 2000 and 2005 in China. More noticeably, 83 percent of the deaths occurred in rural areas.
Since most of the children drowned while swimming or learning to swim, two factors seem to be responsible for their deaths: unsafe waters and lack of adult supervision. Rural children are more vulnerable to drowning, because children in urban areas don't have access to many unsafe spots in rivers, canals, lakes and ponds.
Lack of necessary adult supervision is the other main reason for the high rate of drowning in rural areas. Children are always curious and lack the ability to asses the risks involved in getting into unsafe waters.
Generally, parents or other adults are responsible for the safety of children. But the migration of a large number of able-bodied people from rural areas in search of better livelihood has left few adults to protect the "left-behind children" from potential danger. In homes that have seen husbands - and in many cases even their wives - migrate to cities, only grandparents are left to look after the children. Most of these senior citizens simply don't have the physical strength and energy to keep a check on their grandchildren.
Even in rural households that have one or both the parents, children cannot be taken proper care of because elders are busy working in the fields. In fact, it is not uncommon to see children taking care of their younger siblings. But the elder brothers and sisters are not always able to protect their siblings from harm because they themselves are minors.
The drastic social transformation that has taken place in the past years has increased the hazards children in rural areas face. As an increasing number of young parents migrate to cities, "left-behind children" under grandparents' care face greater danger.
Even in urban areas, migrant workers' children account for the majority of drowning deaths because their parents are too busy trying to make ends meet and thus cannot take good care of their offspring. When schools are open, these children are supervised and protected by teaching and non-teaching staff. But during summer holidays, they are free most of the time to do whatever they like, which in some cases leads to tragedies.
Like all accidents, drowning too is preventable. Although parents are basically responsible for protecting their children from danger, migrant parents don't have enough time to do so. The onus is thus on society (especially government departments) to help these parents protect their offspring.
WHO started a drowning prevention pilot program in the Philippines recently, which focuses on building barriers and fences around water bodies to prevent children from venturing or falling into the water. This scheme could be adopted in many rural areas in China. In fact, Chinese government officials should fence off all the water bodies that are considered unsafe and post guards at vantage points to ensure that children don't venture into them.
Also, village and rural communities should appoint volunteers to act as outdoor guardians of "left-behind children" during summer vacations and help prevent tragedies like drowning.
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