Parents in China Send Children to Labour Camps

Unusual summer camps are gaining popularity in China, where parents pay to send their children to “learn about life”. Instead of ordinary entertainment, schoolchildren face rural life, physical labour and an almost complete lack of gadgets. Such camps are already operating in the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou.

The programme is as far removed as possible from a typical children’s holiday: participants get up early, dig up and sell potatoes, strip bark, carry firewood and feed pigs and other livestock. The children’s phones are confiscated, while in some camps essential items are distributed according to the amount of work completed. Parents pay more than 4,000 yuan for a ten-day session, while a month of this kind of “holiday” can cost over 10,000 yuan — approximately 1,500 dollars.

The punishments have become a particularly controversial part of the programme. If a child fails to complete an assignment, they may be given only potatoes to eat. At the same time, organisers claim that their aim is to show children how hard it is to earn money and enjoy everyday comforts, as well as to teach them to appreciate their parents’ labour. Some camps also make participants write letters home and discuss their impressions after the working day.

Videos from such camps quickly spread across Chinese social media: the footage shows children crying while working and asking to go home. In one of the clips, a child was so exhausted that they said they were ready to do anything as long as they did not have to do farm work. However, some parents consider the experiment a success: one father said that his daughter complained constantly at first, but later got into the work and even began to enjoy it.

Experts, however, have mixed feelings about this approach. Chinese specialists warn that artificially creating extreme conditions does not in itself guarantee an educational effect: after returning home, children may quickly revert to their old habits. In one of the cases described, a seven-year-old girl remained lazy and picky about food even after spending ten days at the camp.

These are not government correctional institutions, but commercial summer programmes that parents voluntarily pay for. Their popularity reflects a rather unusual demand among Chinese families: instead of shielding children from hard work, parents are now willing to pay for the opportunity to send them temporarily into conditions as far removed as possible from the comfortable urban lifestyle.