Happy families make a peaceful country

Images don't lie. Some of the most disturbing clips we see online are two-minutes of an irate parent hammering at a crying young toddler.

Sadly, this sort of domestic abuse, like spouse beating, go unreported and unpunished.

In traditional Chinese culture dirty linen is not aired in public and outsiders are expected to look the other direction.

In the justice systems of the past, there was often the belief that "a competent judge may fail at settling a family dispute".

This sort of one-eye-closed attitude may just be changing and there seem to be hope for the victims at long last.

At least the issues will be openly discussed in the ongoing plenary sessions at the Great Hall of the People and our leaders may finally push through legislation to protect the helpless. Or at least begin the process.

Another sensitive topic already tabled is the growing incidents of minors being sexually abused.

In spite of China's seeming quantum leap in the last 30-odd years, the general attitude toward certain taboos such as sex education is mired in Confucian embarrassment.

Many of China's children are being raised by grandparents while their mothers and fathers compete in the rat race. The elderly guardians may not realize the dangers their young charges now face in the complicated urban communal networks that have mushroomed all over China.

And with the availability of the Internet even the young in rural areas can and do fall prey to predators who hunt online.

In the last few decades, in our headlong dash toward golden goals and growing GDP we have neglected the importance of a firm moral home base.

When you come to think of it our children ensure continuity of any prosperity we build up now. It makes sense to protect our most valuable assets - for both family and country.

In a nation where women already hold up half of the sky, both parents have the moral responsibility to nurture, educate and protect even as they dream of sons becoming dragons and daughters turning into phoenixes.

Every child has the right to grow up happy and healthy. And safe.

China faces major obstacles that block this most basic goal, including the large numbers of migrant workers who desert young and old in the rural areas for better pay in the cities and a sorrowful moral dilemma.

Every March, representatives and lawmakers gather to make China a better place to live in. Sometimes it seems new problems crop up before the old have faded and they, like Hercules, continue the monumental task of cleaning the Augean Stables.

For that alone, they deserve to be applauded especially in the ambience of the new normal.

Contact the writer at paulined@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/09/2015 page2)