A first glance at work
My coworker Sarah and I began working at Zhicheng Public Interest Lawyers this week, a firm of around 30 lawyers who focus on children’s and migrant workers’ legal aid. Where we work is beautiful! 24 doors and an extra 12 upstairs border a long, private courtyard with trees and a recently installed fountain as well as 2 picnic tables where we may also work and have meetings. So far, I have read and taken notes on many Chinese articles, laws, and judicial opinions. I have also worked on some small case reports and from now on will be focusing on more specific research topics. One of the supervisors also asked that I write up a description of the non-profit organization Casa de Esperanza, where I worked as a foster parent before coming to law school. She wishes to compare my experience with the foster care system in China, which should be fascinating.
As we can tell in the Juvenile Delinquency Law, the Provisions on Schools’ Protection of Minors, the Guardianship Law, the Family Education Promotion Law, and others, the Chinese government has implemented many protective measures to promulgate certain values to their children as well as keep them safe. The measures are so detailed that it is hard to read them without feeling as though the state has designated itself as the true “parent” of the child.
Schools and parents are expected, by law, to take dozens of measures to ensure children love the Party, socialist values, traditional mores, and have strongly engrained family values. I feel as though out of hope to protect children to the utmost, China has written as many laws about child protection as they can (with more to come), which is understandable—even honorable. However, at a certain point, it must become infeasible to implement such complicated and specific laws. I feel as though there is an over-systemizing of rather natural states and effects – for example, parents must educate their children through their actions, which is a natural and unforced part of parenting regardless of any law dictating it.
As a result, there is less privacy in the home and liberty to choose your child’s education, since all schools must follow the same state-ordered curriculum and private “for-profit” tutoring is forbidden as of 2021. This is very different from our understanding of childrearing in the United States, where private education and differing curricula were ruled to be constitutional rights by our Supreme Court in the 1920s. In fact, in China, the Supreme Court justices and other judges are not permitted to interpret the Constitution. They may more specifically explain statutory laws, but only the Standing Committee, a subgroup of the legislative branch, is permitted to define and further explain the Constitution.
We also had a conversation with 3 lawyers here about what identification children have on their person. We responded with “usually nothing,” and everyone’s minds, including our own, were thrown into chaos. The lawyers said that as soon as birth, Chinese babies have an ID card, which they have and must be presented in transportation venues as well as when traveling or entering a hotel with their parents. I immediately thought of the fact it would be a thousand times harder to kidnap/traffic a child here than in the United States due to this. Nobody checks a child’s social security card or birth certificate in a hotel; it is just taken for granted they are with their true parents.
The punishment for juvenile criminal offenders is very interesting, as well. Until the age of 18, all sentences are reduced, and no life imprisonment conviction may be imposed. Most minors, if not all, do not ever go to prison—there are three levels of punishment: a stay-at-home and monitoring level; a military/education boarding school; and a prison-like institution within the aforementioned school. If they have completed their sentences before 18, their criminal records are sealed when entering adulthood. It does seem more based on rehabilitation, rather than punishment. I would like to know more about the schools and their success rates, as well as their actual conditions. It would also interest me to know about the liability of parents when their children commit criminal offenses.
So many things to learn, and so many things to compare to the United States—I can’t wait to do more of it over the next nine weeks. For now, zaijian!