A woman is suspected of gouging out the eyes of a 6-year-old boy in Shanxi province last week. While police announced an aunt of the boy's as the suspect, many people came forward to donate money and offer psychological help to the victim. Why do innocent children fall prey to such incidents? says an article in Southern Metropolis Daily. Excerpts:

The case is still under investigation. But nothing can explain the brutal nature of the attack.

There is an equally disturbing side to the attack. Investigations show a universal but sad truth, the loosening of the bond that once tied homes and communities together, and all of us are to blame for that.

Rural residents migrate to cities in search of better livelihood but feel like strangers in an urban milieu. The tenement yards where most of them are forced to live are like a mirror of social reality, where emotional bonds are thin or non-existent. Since people from small towns and big cities with their different identities, social status and backgrounds enjoy different "rights" and form "isolated islands" of existence, there are no interactions or interpersonal relations among them. This is precisely why no one paid attention to the boy who was taken away from his home in broad daylight.

Government institutions and organizations of all countries agree with the United Nations Children's Fund that safety of children depends on communities. UNICEF's pilot projects based on this social reality have yielded remarkable results in 21 Chinese cities since 2006. Hopefully, the UNICEF projects will help spread awareness and make communities fulfill their age-old responsibility of taking care of children, especially those who live in tenement yards.