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In China, some children would risk even their lives just to be reunited with their parents who work in distant places.
Local Chinese news site Southern Morning Post (Nanguo Zaobao) via BBC, reported that two boys, whose names have been withheld, rode a bus by clinging through its underside last week, and stayed there for three hours to get to their destination.
The boys wanted to visit their parents reportedly working in Guangdong province, 80 kilometers far from where the children lived and attended boarding school. They skipped school that day and got to the vehicle from underneath.
They were discovered by local security when the bus stopped at a station. They were found unharmed despite the risk they had gone through. One security worker described the boys as “really thin, so the undercarriage was a good hiding space.”
“They had hidden under the vehicle because they wanted, in vain, to find their parents,” another bus staffer said, per report of Southern Morning Post via BBC. The children were picked up by relatives Friday night.
Social media reactions from China’s microblogging site Sina Weibo, as compiled by the BBC, showed that netizens were shocked and heartbroken by the condition of the boys, which reportedly reflects the bigger national issue of “left behind children” — kids who are forced to be separated from their parents, who are in turn forced by poverty to move to the cities to work.
“There are way too many young children in China now who are separated from their parents from a young age. Who is caring for them, and finding a solution to their problems?” one Chinese netizen asked. Katrina Hallare/JB
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