UNICEF Ambassador Chen Kun plays games with children in Lingshan county of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on May 15, 2023. [Photo provided to China.org.cn]

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) recently conducted a promotion activity on child protection in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. 

During the activity, UNICEF Ambassador Chen Kun, a veteran Chinese actor, met children and caregivers taking part in a UNICEF-supported child protection program in Guangxi's Lingshan county.

The program integrates child protection services from local authorities and communities, including positive parenting projects and follow-up support, to prevent and address all forms of violence, abuse, and neglect of children. Launched in 2020, the program has been jointly implemented with the Child Welfare Department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China in 12 counties in Guangxi, Jiangxi, Ningxia, and Shandong. 

During the trip, Chen visited children and their families and learned about how social workers identified children in need and provided targeted services to them. 

"No child should ever experience physical or emotional abuse. Families and communities should be safe spaces for children to grow up in, but widespread acceptance of corporal punishment and harsh verbal insults in parenting is undermining children's development and could cause long-term harm. We need to change it now," said Chen. "It's encouraging to see UNICEF and its partners taking actions to build an effective child protection system that is both preventative and responsive to the needs of children and their families."

A UNICEF-supported meta-analysis of 68 studies in 2015 showed that the prevalence of physical abuse was over 26% among children aged 0 to 17 in China, with emotional abuse at nearly 20% and neglect at 26%.

Through the child protection program, UNICEF helps counties involved develop and improve children's protection systems. For example, it has established a multi-departmental coordination mechanism to respond to cases of violence, abuse, or neglect, and built a three-level (county-township-village) service platform to promote positive parenting. It trains child protection professionals to best support vulnerable children and families.  

The program is also committed to developing communities where children can take part in activities conducive to their psychosocial development.

"UNICEF knows from its global experience and evidence generated over decades that the most effective way to improve the (child protection) system is holistic intervention, rather than trying to tackle problems issue-by-issue. We hope not only to make a difference for children in the 12 program counties, but also to scale up the model to other regions across the country," said Amakobe Sande, UNICEF Representative to China. 

UNICEF looks forward to continuing its partnership with the Chinese government to invest in the delivery of quality services and a child protection workforce so as to strengthen a comprehensive safety net for children who are experiencing violence and neglect or who are at risk, Sande added.

"As a father myself, I know being a parent is never easy," Chen said. He believed that parenting is a learned behavior and that parents can build a relationship with children featuring respect, trust, empathy, and communication through learning, which is conducive to children's healthy development.

Research shows that positive parenting during the adolescent years is associated with favorable results regarding adjustment and mental health, and parental warmth in childhood may help promote well-being across multiple domains in mid-life . 

By the end of 2022, nearly 16,000 caregivers from the program counties had participated in positive parenting sessions.

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