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As accident injuries have taken the place of diseases as the biggest threat to the physical and mental health of Chinese children. Home and school, traditionally considered the safest places for children have become the most dangerous places with the highest accident rate.
Data offered by the Shanghai Children's Medical Center shows that 52 percent of accident injuries to children between the ages of one and fourteen occur at home, 19 percent on the street and 12 percent in the school.
"Accidents, including traffic accidents, suffocation, drowning, electric shock, suicide, poisoning, violence and injuries caused by animals and fires, have become the top cause of children's injuries and death, demonstrating such characteristics as high death rate, high occurrence rate and high increase rate," said Shan Chunchan, councilor of the State Council who had been the deputy director of the State Administration of Work Safety.
"Most of those accidents occur at home or school, the safe harbor for children," said Shan.
According to Shi Shaohua, a research fellow with the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the major factors resulting in children's accident injuries include carelessness of the parents, a bad house layout, lack of educational knowledge and problems in traffic management.
"Parents always take it for granted that children will think and do as they will, which leads to the occurrence of many tragedies," said Shao.
Among all the causes, violence are one of the most important injuring both the physical and mental health of children.
A survey on personal injury to children made by China Youth & Children Research Center (CYCRC) around the country in 2002 shows that 60.9 percent of the children surveyed have been beaten by their parents and as many as 84 percent have been scolded by their parents.
Among 370 teachers surveyed, 60.1 percent admitted that corporal punishments were being taken as a method to punish students by teachers in their region. Making students stand or run are the most popular punishments used by teachers.
Among all kinds of injuries caused by violence, sexual violation such as sexual harassment, obscenity and rape is one of the most severe hurts girls suffer.
"Many cases of sexual violation occur at home or at school," said Bu Wei, director of mass communication and juvenile development research center of Institute of Journalism and Communication, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
"Such sexual violation will not only hurt their bodies but also harm their mental health and threaten the shaping of a healthy personality in the future," said Bu.
"Without psychological help and help of other kinds, it's difficult for those girls suffering from the shadows of sexual violation to recover and to live a normal life," Bu said.
Furthermore, words or actions of good intentions or at least without evil intentions of the adult will also cause mental hurts to children.
According to Lu Qin, deputy chief editor of the China Children Press and Publication Group, most mental problems of children are caused by factors from family or school.
"Much higher expectations, excessive care and intervention, as well as abuse and indifference of parents and teachers all will bring adverse effects to the mental health of children," Lu said.
Statistics show there are about 30 million youngsters with mental problems in China. Among them, middle school students and primary school pupils suffering from mental handicaps are 21.6 percent and 32 percent respectively. Such a percentage is still on the rise in recent years.
"When suffering from family violence, children will always show strong resistance. Some even want to retaliate against their parents by hurting themselves," said Sun Hongyan, director of children institute of CYCRC.
A spot survey showed that when beaten and scolded at home, 9.2 percent of the children inquired had thought of suicide, 18.1 percent wanted to leave their home, 8.4 percent had the idea to fight with their parents and 6 percent thought to retaliate against their parents when they were grown up.
The survey also shows that 41.2 percent of the children fear hurts caused by violence such as being threatened, beaten or scolded, much higher than their fear of other kinds of hurts.
According to a survey on disease monitoring and injury epidemiology, each year nearly 40 million children in China suffer from injuries caused by accidents. Among them, 13.6 million need outpatient or emergency treatment and 3.35 million have to be hospitalized.
The survey showed that annually 1.2 million children in China suffer from functional damages caused by accident injuries and 400,000 are disabled for this reason.
And the direct loss caused by accident injuries to children in China reaches hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
"Most children's injuries caused by accidents can be prevented, especially those that occur at home or school," said Shan Chunchang. "The most important measure is to strengthen the prevention consciousness, especially the vigilance and sense of responsibility of the adult."
"Moreover, educating on accident prevention, enacting safety standards on products and establishing a monitoring institution are all necessary for the establishment of a complete prevention system," Shan added.
(Xinhua News Agency February 9, 2004)
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