Adapted from:
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20100507-214781.html

This new report was on children of kiln workers who have been leashed to the workshop's windows with rope by their parents. This was reported from HAINING, Zhejiang. According to the report, it was believed that "parents of these children do not have time to look after them while they are away at work". Hence, the best solution of all is to leash the kids to the workshop's windows whilst they are working. It was also stated in the report saying that the parents of the kids are afraid that their children will get into an accident if left unsupervised. Furthermore, these children are leashed for nearly 10 hours every day.

Below are some photos adapted from the site:

Personal Response:
From the photos seen above, i am sure that all our hearts do go out to all these innocent and helpless kids. We can clearly see from these images that these kids are mostly toddlers or slightly older. From the pictures, we can also see that these leashes attached to them are no longer 1.5m and these limited range of leashes control the access of the kids. Shouldn't kids at this age be spending their time on playing toys and starting to pick up some basic words for communication purposes? However, these kids are not. They are spending their time in limited space, idling around and not doing anything much. Should they need anything, their needs might not be settled at the very first few minutes. As we know from the source, they are leashed to the windows 'for nearly 10 hours every day'.

For me as a reader, i can't help but wonder how meals are delivered to them every day when they are leashed for 'nearly 10 hours every day'. Questions like "Are they getting enough nutrients by living in such a confined area?", "Who will come to their rescue if they meet with danger?" and "What if they adopt these bad behaviours in the future and use it on others?" just run through my brains without stopping. I feel that the government of China should step in to do something to improve the situation and lives of these children. I feel that banning kids from being leashed should be implemented to prevent more kids from being leashed. Apart from that, to help the parents of such children to cope with the living difficulties, the government can heavily subsidize the cost of running infant care and child care. By subsidizing these child care centres, parents of these children can now worry less and focus on doing their respective job well because their children are now in good hands.

A question for all you guys to ponder upon: Are having more kids more important or taking good care of the kids more important nowadays?

Sheridin :)