Nanjing boy Xin Xin, ten, takes care of his grandmother in hospital on Dec 25. His father died when he was a year old and his mother went missing in 2010, since when his grandmother has been raising him. [Photo/CFP]

China has around 580,000 children whose parents are still alive but do not offer proper care, and they are in urgent need of the country's assistance, China Youth Daily reported on Monday.

These are the "de facto orphans": children with one parent dead, lost, seriously ill, having mental problems or severe disabilities, or in jail, while the other parent does not offer proper care. The term also includes neglected illegitimate or adopted children.

"They lost the economic support of their parents, and are a marginalized group," Sun Lei, secretary-general of the Shaanxi Women and Children Development Foundation, said."They could hardly make a living, and were placed in a very tough environment," he added.

They also lack national support due to the lack of national policies addressing their plight.

For example, in Shaanxi province, each child adopted by an orphanage receives a monthly subsidy of 1,000 yuan ($167), and orphans raised in their relatives' family can get 800 yuan every month.

But children whose parents are still alive but do not support them are not eligible for the subsidy. In some cases, these minors even have to take care of their grandparents or parents who have lost the ability to work.

One of these children starred in a promotion video to raise awareness of this vulnerable group.

Xiaoying, 7, lives with her grandparents, who farm a small area of land and receive meager financial support, after her father died and mother abandoned them.

Xiaoying attends school, helps her grandmother with chores and cares for her seriously ill grandfather.

Another girl, Xiaojing, has a tumor on her right face. She was abandoned by her family shortly after birth and is now raised by an elderly woman who has two unmarried sons with mental disabilities. The family is unable to offer proper care.

Across Shaanxi, there are nearly 18,000 children with similar difficulties, according to Sun. His foundation has launched six pilot programs to search for these unattended minors.

By the numbers

A survey of 120 de facto orphans in the eight counties of Shaanxi found that most of their families can hardly make both ends meet, and they lack adequate mental healthcare.

In these families, about 67.6 percent of the junior high school students live on less than 100 yuan a month, and 17.7 percent of the children said they don't have enough food, a survey conducted by a team led by Zheng Anyun, director of Northwestern University's Psychological Counseling Center, showed.

Around 57 percent of the de facto orphans said they often missed their parents, but would not like to answer questions about their father or mother.

Because of the lack of parental love, they are often mocked by peers and live in fear. About 32 percent of those polled said they "don't see a point in living".

Furthermore, a large portion of these children were not covered by rural medical care schemes, and would only be sent to hospitals when they were seriously ill, with families pooling their resources to cover medical costs.