China’s children – surviving the aftermath
Posted: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 1:36 PM
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Beijing, China
By Mark Mullen, NBC News Correspondent
MIANYANG, China – China's earthquake did not discriminate. It struck town and country, rich and poor, old and young. But it is China's children who may have suffered the most.
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| Mark Mullen/ NBC News |
| Parents search lists of injured and missing at a refugee center in Sichuan province. |
Schools were in session when the quake hit and many of the buildings were full of children when they collapsed. In seconds, students were killed, others were injured and even those rescued were traumatized. And many of those who did survive lost loved ones and their homes.
Other kids pulled from the rubble are now missing. When the quake hit – good Samaritans it is hoped – whisked some children away. But where are they?
As we perused the bulletin boards located at the Mianyang Stadium, which has become a refugee center for some 17,000 people, we saw hundreds of fliers posted by desperate parents with the faces of their little ones and contact information pleading for their return.
Sometimes children already in a parent’s arms were traumatized. One father gingerly carried his 2-year-old daughter named Liu Xiangyi.
Her face was covered with abrasions from being covered with debris during the quake. Her father said she has not spoken since the earthquake.
Perhaps it is because she is from Beichuan. If you take a look at the videotape of that town NBC News obtained from the moments after the quake struck, it is easier to understand why she might not be talking.
Helping kids cope
There are also plenty of kids who suffered less or hide the pain more. They are harder to spot.
A psychiatrist from China's Ministry of Health is trying to reach those kids. He and his team are doing counseling at the refugee center on site as well as training teachers. Why teachers?
China is still a developing culture when it comes to mental health and the awareness of and services for mental health care are not as pervasive as in the West. In enormous Sichuan province, which is both rural and urban, teachers may be the only psychological lifeguards in proximity to these kids almost daily.
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| Mark Mullen/ NBC News |
| Chinese children and their parents at the Mianyang sports stadium that has been converted into a refugee center for 17,000. |
So teachers are learning how to help kids process their feelings and call in help for children who may need professional help quickly.
Meanwhile, some kids are trying to work through their own feelings. At the stadium shelter, there were three girls drawing pictures. Another was putting her feelings down in a journal.
China’s new orphans
The recovery will likely be much more complex for a new segment of China’s population – those orphaned by the quake. In a safeguarded facility we were able to visit, there were 200 children whose parents were confirmed dead or missing. The group we saw looked to be of middle- and high-school age. Many were resting on the floor, some talking, others playing games.
Without knowing it, they are being sought after.
From the moment the first earthquake stories hit the news, there has been an enormous spike in requests from prospective parents both in China and around the world.
During the initial days following the quake, there was a wave of panic among some migrant worker parents, toiling in China's big cities, who raced back to Sichuan over fears their children, who had been staying with relatives, might be quickly adopted by an overseas family.
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| Mark Mullen/ NBC News |
| Missing children posters in Sichuan province, China. |
That is not likely to happen. Even before the quake, China revised its adoption rules making it far stricter to bring home a child, a process that generally takes a year or more, so that everything can be checked out.
A government advisor from the group Care for Children told me the first plan for the kids would be to see if there are surviving relatives with whom they can live. If not, then they will be placed with Chinese foster families – though adoptions later are still a possibility.
There is something especially tragic about seeing bad things happening to children, but I was reminded of one thing by the psychiatrist now treating these kids at the refugee center: their youth may be their best ally. "Children," he said, "can have extraordinary resiliency. That’s the best thing going for us."
