Legislators should enact specific laws to protect children from being harmed by insensitive parents, says an article in Beijing Times. Excerpts:

A woman in Cixi, Zhejiang province, threw her baby daughter on a highway where she was run over by a speeding vehicle on April 29. This inhuman act by a mother has shocked people across the country.

The woman is under investigation and is set to be questioned by forensic psychiatrists to determine the state of her mind. But irrespective of whether or not the woman is intellectually challenged, the authorities, especially lawmakers, should reflect on how to prevent parents from hurting their children.

In Chinese tradition, the guardianship of minors is regarded as a family affair. Some people believe that biological parents have the right to decide their children's life (even if it involves physical punishment) and people outside the family have no right to interfere in what is considered a strictly family issue.

But in modern legislative concept, parents and children are equal members of a family. No matter how young a child is, it is protected by law.

China's laws and regulations on protection of children's rights are not sound. The General Provisions of Civil Law and the Minors Protection Law regulate that only when guardians fail to perform their duty or violate children's legal rights and interests can legislative authorities revoke their guardianship.

In Cixi's case, if the mother had been suffering from some mental ailment, she was not qualified to be the guardian of the child. And if she was a fully conscious person, she should have been subjected to certain laws and regulations to ensure that she didn't do anything to harm her child.

The Cixi tragedy should serve as a warning to the authorities and prompt them to devise laws to provide foolproof protection to children and prevent parents and guardians from harming children.

The opinions expressed on this page do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily 05/06/2014 page9)