A report delivered recently by Gu Xiulian, vice chairwoman of the Standing Committee of National People's Congress, pinpoints some serious problems in protecting juvenile's rights in law.
Following a previous plan, from which this report is derived, an inspection team evaluated the enforcement of two laws in July, namely, Law for the Protection of Minors, Law on Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency.
Firstly, the report revealed the violation of minors' education rights. The nine year compulsory education system is far from perfect in rural areas. Among 2,861 counties over the country, 431 have failed to realize the compulsory education system. The drop-out rate in rural junior high schools remains at a high level: from 5 percent to 15 percent in many areas.
In addition, minors from migrating families do not receive sufficient education. This is because many urban schools refuse to include students from migrating families into their education system, including some public schools. Also the contradictions between residence registration systems and school registration management brings greater difficulties to clarify for the migrating students.
Secondly, the report emphasizes that negative information is dangerous for minors. According to an investigation, cyber culture has a great impact on minors, and the Internet-related crime rate has soured to 25.1 percent early this year, the number being 4.1 percent in 2000. The rampant flow of smuggled and pirated video and audio products is also dangerous to minors as they contain too much violence, superstition, porn and terror. Some student-oriented cartoons and comics, pocket books, strip shows and erotic entertainment places all do damage to minors' physical and psychological world.
Thirdly, the report mentions that juvenile delinquency is on the rise. It is showing some new characteristics. One, more and more crime is aimed at making money, such as robbery and stealing. Two, gang crime occupies 70 to 80 percent of all crime. Some gangs committed complex serious crime, with severe cruelty. Third, criminals are becoming younger. Four, 60 percent of criminals in recent years are drop-out students who have no jobs. Five, crime means are becoming more adult-like and intelligent. Some minor criminals intentionally damaged crime scenes, some using cloaked means to escape detection.
Fourthly, the report tells of an insufficient minor protection system. In 1991, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice, jointly issued A Circular on Setting up Coordinated Working System on Juvenile Delinquency. However, in the past ten years, most places failed to setup a "coordinated working system". Many places imprisoned minors together with adult criminals and many juvenile courts do not have stable structure or personnel. Although Beijing, Shanghai and some other big cities provide legal aid to minor defendants, this is hard to carry out in most cities.
(China.org.cn by Li Liangdu, September 14, 2003)
