The number of juvenile dilingquents have leapt by 13% every year since 2000, many of them being stay-behind children, the children of migrant workers.

"More and more juvenile delinquents in China are involved in violent acts or mafia activities, besides, quite a large number of them have used intelligent methods when committing offences, " said Shao Wenhong, the director of the research laboratory of the Supreme People's Court.

Currently there are 150 million migrant workers nationwide, who leave 29.9 million children back home.

Without proper guardianship and family education, it is easy for stay-behind children to be misguided by bad information from the society.

(China News Service September 24, 2007)