The video, shared on social media by the user “Domestic Violence Survivors,” shows a woman beating her child while he is tied to a chair. In one scene of the disturbing footage, you can see that she has also chained their dog up in another room of their home. When it becomes clear that nobody is coming for help and that no one will attempt to save them from this abuser’s wrath, we are left with more questions than answers about what went wrong.
In China last Friday night (June 22), an unidentified man was arrested after allegedly sexually assaulting two women at knife point in front of his children who were forced to watch. Onlookers called police but when officers arrived they found nothing because before police could get there the perpetrator had fled — leaving his young son behind handcuffed and screaming as he watched his father being taken away by authorities.,
“Chinese wiegers” is a term that refers to the people who were captured and forced into labor in China during the 1800s. The footage of “chinese wiegers” was taken by Chinese filmmaker Hu Jie.
Video footage of a woman chained in a hut in an eastern Chinese town has sparked online cries for stronger security for women and the mentally ill in rural areas of the nation as the country prepares for Lunar New Year festivities.
Authorities in Feng county, Jiangsu province, have identified the lady as a mother of eight who is married to a local guy called Dong.
Mr. Dong had previously captured the attention of Chinese social media users in videos portraying him as a hardworking parent raising eight children and caring for his mentally ill wife. According to the county administration, those films, which were shared by social media influencers, drew visits to his town and money to his family.
Last week, however, the release of a new video showing the mother of the children in a shed with no door sparked a social media uproar of worry for the lady and conjecture over whether she was a so-called “purchased wife” or a victim of human trafficking. In rural China, where a desire for sons has led to an excess of unmarried males, paying money for a bride was formerly a popular practice.
A lady was locked up in a shed with no door, according to a video that just surfaced on China’s internet.
Screenshot from a video broadcast on China’s Netease news portal’s social media account.
A lady in a thin sweater is seen in the corner of the shed in the most current footage, which was seen by The Wall Street Journal, with a chain around her neck and a lock under her chin. A guy can be heard inquiring whether she needs a jacket. She nods; the temperature outside is 0 degrees Celsius, according to the caption. She stands motionless, her hands folded, while the guy offers her a jacket. She says a few things, but it’s hard to understand what she’s saying.
Officials from Feng County soon responded to the video, claiming that Ms. Yang lived apart from her husband and children because she is mentally ill and aggressive at times. Ms. Yang had been married to Mr. Dong since 1998, according to a statement released Friday, and the marriage had been free of human trafficking. No attempts were made to contact Mr. Dong.
After the first statement sparked much outrage online, the county administration published a follow-up statement on Sunday, stating that Ms. Yang has been diagnosed as schizophrenia and is getting treatment in a hospital. Mr. Dong is being investigated by local authorities, according to the report.
According to a statement released by the county administration on Sunday, the lady was foraging for food in the region in June 1998 when she was taken in by Mr. Dong’s father. Two months later, the marriage license was issued. Mr. Dong gave the lady the name Yang, according to the statement. Authorities didn’t know her her name or any other identifying information, according to the report. Ms. Yang’s DNA was entered into a national database in 2020, according to the statement, but no match was identified.
By late Saturday, posts on the county government’s first response had received more than 140 million views on China’s Twitter-like site Weibo.
“How do I know she isn’t a victim of human trafficking?” Where is the evidence that she suffers from mental illness? What evidence do you have that this is her genuine name?” enquired one Weibo user. “Even if she’s mentally sick, why would she have so many children and live in such deplorable circumstances?” one person remarked.
Jiang Shengnan, a well-known author from Zhejiang province who is also a member of the National People’s Congress, asked for an inquiry into the situation on her verified social-media account on Saturday.
Over the weekend, some of the postings began to vanish from the internet. The account of a guy from Jiangsu who uploaded the video on Douyin, China’s equivalent of TikTok, last week is no longer active, and certain posts regarding the lady are no longer available. Requests for comment from Douyin and Weibo were not returned.
Local family-planning authorities attempted and failed to persuade the couple to use birth control after the couple had their second child, according to the county administration, which also said that the pair has not been penalised for having more children than China’s family-planning regulations allow.
The film, according to Yaqiu Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, exposed “the abuses routinely endured by Chinese women, particularly those with mental problems, in rural regions.” “While it is unknown how the lady got up in the hamlet or the nature of her alleged marriage,” Ms. Wang said, “what is certain is that the authorities grossly failed to act in a home setting where horrible abuses…were visible.”
A request for comment was not immediately returned by the Feng county chapter of the state-backed All-China Women’s Federation, which was established to protect Chinese women’s interests.
The gender ratio in China has been skewed by a historic preference for boys mixed with the now-defunct one-child policy, with males outnumbering women by 17.5 million among Chinese aged 20 to 40, according to census statistics, but the gender gap has shrunk in recent years.
The federal government is concerned about the excess of unmarried males, which is particularly noticeable in rural regions. Premier Li Keqiang questioned a sugar-cane farmer about the major local issues during a visit to southeastern Guangxi region in September. The farmer said, “It’s so tough to acquire a woman in the villages,” according to a video of the discussion that went viral on social media. According to local media, the local administration in Guangxi has begun maintaining records on unmarried males.
—This paper was co-written by Qianwei Zhang.
Liyan Qi can be reached at [email protected]
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