BEIJING, Oct. 17 -- China has taken measures in the past few years to ensure children's rights to social security, education and other public services are effectively protected in its poverty relief efforts, according to a white paper released Monday.

China has introduced an appropriate and all-inclusive welfare and service system for children and carried out experimental work on encouraging social protection of minors, said the document on China's poverty reduction progress unveiled by the State Council Information Office.

The country also promoted the establishment of a system for rescuing and protecting minors and a children's welfare and protection network at the county, township and village levels, the document showed.

Since 2011, more than half of China's counties have implemented a program of nutrition improvement for rural students receiving compulsory education, with the central government spending 67 billion yuan (about 10 billion U.S. dollars) benefiting 33.6 million rural students.

As of 2012, the government carried out a nutrition improvement program for children in poor areas, providing free nutrition packages to infants aged six to 24 months and popularizing knowledge on healthy feeding among guardians.

In 2015 alone, the central government allocated subsidies of 500 million yuan to this program, benefiting 2.11 million children in 341 counties, the white paper said.