By Aliyu DANLADI
China Ministry of Civil Affairs on Tuesday said the country has fewer “left-behind children’’ in the countryside, due to government policies helping bring migrant families together.
“The number of rural left-behind children had dropped to 6.97 million as of the end of August,’’ Ni Chunxia, deputy head of the social affairs department of the Ministry, said.
Ni, however, said that it went down 22.7 per cent from two years ago when the government started tracking the numbers.
He said that about 70 per cent of left-behind children stayed in seven provinces in central and southwest China.
Sichuan topped the list, reporting 765,000 left-behind children.
“More than half of the children are boys,’’ Ni said, adding that almost all of them are healthy.
Ni credited the drop in numbers to the anti-poverty campaign, urbanisation, and rural revitalisation strategy.
He noted that the campaigns had helped urban migrants bring their children to the cities and has inspired them to return to start their own businesses in the countryside.
