China's Premier Li Keqiang said on Wednesday that welfare services to left-behind children should be improved.

"In recent years, some extreme tragedies have called attention to their plight. We should identify the duty of the supervisors of these left-behind children, and local government, village committees and schools must carry out their duties," the Premier said at a State Council executive meeting on Wednesday. 

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China has millions of left-behind children especially in rural areas as their parents migrate to bigger cities to look for jobs, and Li said that this will not change in the near future. 

The Economist reported that 61 million Chinese children are left in rural villages while their parents go miles away to work, leaving them with their grandparents, relatives, family friends, or sometimes alone to fend for themselves. Another nine million children are left in cities while parents go to work in other cities. 

A research in Shanghai revealed that left-behind children do not perform well in school, and lack emotional and social development. 

Li called on the whole society, charities, and social organizations to help protect left-behind children. He said the government will establish a system that will report on left-behind children, offer assistance, and generally keep them from "falling prey to criminal activity."

"Of course, the most important solution is to reduce the number of left-behind children by helping migrant workers be accepted in cities, or return to their hometowns for entrepreneurship and employment," Li said.

Studies show that about 15 percent of left-behind children do not see their parents for one year, and this has a huge effect on the children's emotional stability. Left-behind kids are found to be prone to depression and anxiety. 

TagsChinese Premier Li Keqiang, millions of left-behind children, left-behind children in China, State Council