The Dutch youth and family minister spoke before an audience of Asian family planning experts, abortion activists and gynaecologists. He was invited because China is looking to the Dutch youth policies for inspiration.

Jia Yug gets a couple of coins for carrying packages at the bus station. That will buy him noodles with tomato sauce. "It tastes much better than what I get at home, because grandma is too ill to cook." His partially demented grandmother is the only family the 12-year-old boy has. "So I almost never used to go home. The teachers at school didn't miss me either. They said they didn't care whether or not I turned up to school." The next logical step was to join other runaways in a park.

Jia Yun is a Chinese street kid. His bravado is still endearing, but it won't be long before a boy like him gets on the wrong path. Although he will probably be alright, now that volunteers have brought him to the Guangai home for runaways.
 

Criminal
"There is only one thing that is important to us: that is to give them a home and an education, so that they stay out of prison. Every child we take in is one less criminal later," says the home’s deputy manager Wang Xianlong. He does this without government subsidies; the whole project is run on 100 percent charity. Minister André Rouvoet is visibly impressed:

"I think very good work is being done with very little means. And I take my hat off to the project.”

He has just had lunch with students and visited an international school, but the Guangai project has given him an insight into the severe problems faced by Deputy Minister of the Population and Family Planning Commission, Zhao Baige.

Marije Vlaskamp
Radio Netherlands

All photos © Marije Vlaskamp/RNW