Video of toddler smoking in China sparks outrage

A Chinese boy appearing no older than 3-years-old was seen puffing away on a cigarette in a 3-minute video clip posted on LiveLeak.com on Saturday.

The toddler, seen wearing a green and yellow cardigan, is shown in the video sitting on a stool by a road holding a cigarette in his left hand.

Instead of taking away the cigarette from the toddler, some passers-by either stood to watch or used devices to record the young one puffing away.

A woman – presumably the mother – then came forward to scold the boy, but she did nothing to take the cigarette away from the boy’s hand.

The video, played over 84,000 times, has sparked outrage among viewers, some of whom used words like “sad” and “disgusting” to describe the video.

One viewer even speculated that the boy could have been used as a tool to attract passers-by to the store located adjacent to him.

The video also led to a conversation on China’s air pollution crisis, in which many spoke of how the country’s polluted air was as detrimental to the boy’s health as well as smoking.

China has the largest number of smokers in the world with over 300 million in the country – that is almost 20 per cent of the nation’s total population.

In January, as part of efforts to crackdown on widespread smoking in the country, the government announced that it aimed to ban smoking at public places by end of this year.