Guideline to boost family role in educating minors

Chinese authorities have unveiled a guideline to leverage the role of families in educating juveniles involved in legal cases and improve the capacity for family education.

The guideline, jointly issued last month by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the All-China Women's Federation and the China working committee of care for the next generations, called for guidance for parents or other guardians who fail in their guardianship or cultivation of minors.

It also urged the strengthening of family education for single-parent families, stepfamilies, adoptive families, rural families with children left behind by parents who have found work elsewhere, and families with people who are disabled, in compulsory drug rehabilitation or serving prison sentences.

Evaluation of family education should be conducted in four types of cases involving minors, including minors whose rights are infringed upon by their guardians. Suggestions on improving family education shall be given to the guardians based on the evaluation results, and guardians will be ordered to receive guidance when necessary, it said.

The guidance for parents and guardians includes improving the law-abiding awareness and self-protection abilities of minors, correcting improper education methods, and reshaping family relations and enhancing psychological counseling.

An official with the SPP's juveniles procuratorate office said that helping guardians perform their duties promotes the implementation of the Law on the Protection of Minors and the Law on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency and protects the rights and interests of minors.

Although juvenile delinquency has decreased in recent years, problems such as the increasingly younger age of minors who do commit crimes cannot be ignored. Also, crimes against minors still occur frequently, the official said.

In addition, case analysis showed that a bad family environment and improper guardianship are the major reasons minors commit crimes, the official said.

SPP statistics show crimes committed by minors from migrant-worker families accounted for more than half of all juvenile crimes last year. Among minor victims of sexual assault, over 20 percent were from single-parent families, were under the guardianship of grandparents, or were the children of parents working elsewhere.