SHANGHAI'S largest orphanage opened its doors to foreign journalists yesterday in an attempt to quash allegations it has allowed hundreds of orphans to die, but declined to provide figures to disprove the charges.
Some two dozen foreign reporters were given a guided tour of the Shanghai Children's Welfare Institute, trooping through room after room full of children playing with colourful toys under the watchful eyes of orphanage staff.
The institute was the main target of a 350 page report published Sunday by the New York based Human Rights Watch/Asia which accused workers in Chinese orphanages of covering up thousands of deaths that occur each year as the result of starvation and medical neglect.
The report, relying heavily on the testimony of Dr Zhang Shuyun, a medical worker at the institute from 1988 to 1993, said 200 children died at the orphanage between November 1991 and October 1992 because of malnutrition.
Asked repeatedly to provide figures, including those on children admitted to or who had left the home, which might cast some light on the charges that the children were allowed to die, the officials were unable to oblige.
"Let me know what statistics you want and we will supply them to you through the foreign office in Beijing," said Mr Shi Derong director of the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau.
Mr Han Weicheng, who was director at the orphanage while Dr Zhang worked there, rejected the existence of a practice of "summary resolution," which the report said had been in effect since 1992 and was aimed at artificially limiting the number of children on a given ward.
"We do not understand this term," Mr Han said, adding that the allegations were "based on rumour.
By 1994, the orphanage housed about 400 children, with the number growing to 500 last year. Mr Han admitted that the death rate had peaked in 1988-89 at 19 cent because of an unusually cold winter and problems with the heating system.
However, since then the facilities had been improved, Mr Han said, with the mortality rate drop between 3 and 5 per cent.
Mr Shi said mortality was high because many children were abandoned by their parents and arrived with health problems, while some were terminally ill children sent by hospitals.
The officials identified an emaciated boy who was tied to his bed in a picture released by Human Rights Watch.
"We have never approved the boy to be tied up because he was very sick and couldn't eat," M Han said, adding that the picture was taken with Dr Zhang's camera by an orphan.
He claimed that Dr Zhang, who quit her job in 1993 and left China in 1995 for the US, spread rumours to topple him because she was interested in his position. The treatment of children in Chinese orphanages is the subject of a programme to be screened on Channel 4 this evening.