In recent years, there have been several media reports about infants and toddlers being abused or sexually assaulted in care institutions and kindergartens by the very people who are supposed to take care of them. This age group, incapable of protecting themselves, are extremely vulnerable to such kind of abuse. While child abusers must be stringently punished, the effects of the abuse on the victims can never be mitigated, and the harm continues to cast a shadow for the rest of their life. Therefore, preventing such abuse is extremely important.

The National Health Commission (NHC) recently drafted a regulation on the management of care institutions, proposing that those with a record of child abuse, both institutions and individuals, should be blacklisted. Such individuals would be barred from being hired and parents should not send their children to blacklisted institutions.

While the proposal has been lauded, some people have pointed out that there must be detailed and practical measures to ensure the effectiveness of this blacklist.

Blacklist and beyond

Zhang Chunyi (news.bandao.cn): The NHC plans to blacklist those who have a record of child abuse. Such individuals would be prevented from being employed by care institutions and kindergartens. This regulation is expected to fill some of the loopholes in the legal system and better protect children. Banning those who have a bad record from the childcare industry permanently will effectively screen out the black sheep and compel the industry to improve and standardize its services.

However, while the blacklist is a laudable measure, there is something else that needs to be considered. What if a childcare institution has a staffer who is a serial abuser but doesn't have a criminal record? It is very easy to go scot-free even after repeated abuse because sometimes parents are not aware of the abuse, and sometimes even if they are, they could be unwilling to go to the police to save their child the trauma of a court case and the ensuing publicity.

One possible way to enhance security is to have caregivers always work in pairs, consisting of a man and a woman, so that they can keep an eye of each other.

These institutions should also have trained counselors who would monitor the children's behavior. A traumatized child will often behave in a different way and a trained counselor can spot the difference. Other staff, such as teachers as well as parents too, need to be aware of the danger so that if there is any behavioral change in the child, investigations can start immediately without the situation aggravating.

If an untoward situation does occur, the matter should be immediately reported to the police and the child taken for medical examination. Both the child and parents would need counseling and care to cope with the trauma. If we are prepared for the worst, then maybe we can avert the worst.

Li Yingfeng (Economic Daily): With the launch of the current family planning policy, the number of infants is growing. The demand for young children care is also rising. However, the development of these care institutions is patchy, with a lot of loopholes in the management system, particularly in terms of children's safety.

The draft proposes a blacklist to create a safe environment for young children. We need a strict and efficient system to reduce the hidden dangers that threaten young children.

Apart from the blacklist, it's also necessary to thoroughly screen out those who apply for jobs in these institutions so that those who are not suitable can be weeded out in the first place.

Data-sharing needed

Yu Gui (China Youth Daily): Setting up a blacklist of care institutions and kindergartens is an important part of children's safety in preschool education. We hope more departments and forces will join in the efforts to ensure the next generation's safety.

After an instance of child abuse, although there are some measures to cope with the aftermath, they are not efficient and standardized enough. Sometimes, justice never gets delivered despite parents' efforts. The point is that even if we have very efficient redress after such an incident, it's still too late for the harmed children. We urgently need an effective and reliable safety network to prevent such incidents. Blacklisting abusive day care centers and kindergartens is an effective way to prevent such tragedies.

The question now is how to collect specific and accurate data on abusers.

If an individual has a criminal record, the judicial or police system will have the record but these are not necessarily connected to other organizations' database. Therefore, it's important to have data-sharing cooperation among education and health authorities and related departments.

A blacklist is not enough, strong enforcement matters equally. This time, the NHC has proposed a round-the-clock monitoring and alarm system in the areas frequented by children. There should be surveillance cameras and the recordings should be kept for at least 90 days. Care institutions should be obligated to ensure the security of the surveillance equipment. If a surveillance camera malfunctions or disappears, those in charge of the monitoring system should be held accountable. Only in this way can we prevent the truth from being suppressed and bring criminals to justice.

Ren Ran (The Beijing News): Compared with primary schools, the management of care institutions and kindergartens is still slack, although more attention is being paid to it nowadays. However, given the fact that there are now more babies, the demand for care centers is on the rise. How to ensure effective management to prevent child abuse is thus an urgent problem.

Early this year, the Supreme People's Procuratorate said it would coordinate with relevant departments to make it possible for schools to check whether a job applicant has any criminal record, especially sexual abuse of minors. Today, the NHC means to expand this practice to care institutions. When there is a record of criminal behavior, those record holders will be prevented from fleeing from one care institution to another once their crime is discovered.

Entire society agrees that the care institution industry should implement the blacklist and bar abusers. The issue now is how to set up relevant standards and implement them. How to determine whether a child is abused or hurt? Who should report such incidents or suspicions? There must be further details.

We should never allow any such incident to be downplayed, which could lead to the blacklist being incomplete. To prevent those with bad records from being recruited again by care institutions, it's important to enable sharing information about those who are engaged in the same or similar industries.

Housekeeping, day care, and the like are all related to the care of vulnerable groups like children. If there is a shared system where potential employees' records can be reviewed in different sectors, it will not only cut the cost of maintaining such a database, but also increase the efficiency in terminating abusers. Such a network will be a strong deterrent for abusers and children will be protected from them.

Children are the hope and future of a nation. Imposing some restrictions while recruiting care takers is a must for ensuring their protection. A blacklist based on wide information-sharing is an effective way to do this.

Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar