State targets issue of missing children

Departments and ministries under the State Council have responded to a number of public concerns in the past week, including setting up a missing children information platform, protection of consumers' rights, execution of judicial judgments, non-payment of migrant workers' wages, public recruitment in impoverished and remote areas and rural toilet renovation.

The Ministry of Public Security has recently launched the second phase of a missing children emergency information platform in Beijing. The platform allows police to instantly release information on missing children and automatically passes the information to relevant new media outlets and citizens in the surrounding areas where the children disappeared to let more citizens get access to accurate information about the missing children. According to the ministry, the platform has released 286 articles of information for missing children and found 260 missing children in the six months since it was launched.

According to the draft implementation regulation on the Law on Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Consumers released on Nov 15, business operators will be forbidden from making phone calls, or sending short messages or e-mails for commercial promotion. According to the draft, business operators should establish an information confidentiality system, and should not provide consumers' personal information to other parties without the consumers' consent. Commercial calls, e-mails and short messages are also prohibited.

The State Council issued an announcement on accelerating supervision, warning and punishment mechanisms for people who fail to carry out court decisions. It urges the relevant authorities to take effective measures to enable such people to execute the judgments by the court. Information about those who refuse to execute the judgments will be released through the media and on the internet. Their applications for bank loans, business registration, tax exemption, purchasing land and real estate will be restricted.

Twelve ministries and departments, including the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the National Development and Reform Commission have jointly issued an announcement to launch a special inspection on paying migrant workers' salaries, which aims to reduce the amount of defaults and resolve such disputes before the Spring Festival 2017. The special inspection, from Nov 15, mainly focuses on real estate construction, transportation, processing and manufacturing, as well as catering services.

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has issued an announcement on improving public institution recruitment work in poverty-stricken and remote areas. The announcement eases the restrictions on age, educational background, major and household registration of applicants to attract more talent working and living in impoverished and remote areas.