What’s trending?
A video of a mother of eight children chained to a wall went viral on Chinese social media over the Lunar New Year, as horrified viewers speculated she may be the victim of trafficking and called on the police to investigate.
The hashtag #Local authorities published the details of the Xuzhou mother of eight #官方通报徐州丰县生育八孩女子情况had been viewed around 2 billion times by Monday on Weibo, garnering more than 1 million comments.
What’s the story?
In a video posted by a since closed account on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, on Jan. 28, a woman was shown chained to the wall of a rudimentary dwelling in a village in Feng county, administered by the city of Xuzhou in East China’s Jiangsu province. In the now-deleted video, the woman was seen to be wearing little despite the winter weather and apparently unable to communicate well.
This video spread widely online, causing public outcry over the woman’s inhuman treatment, who was reported to have given birth to eight children. Viewers speculated that she had been abducted and was being held against her will.
The authorities in Feng county responded to the online attention in statements on Jan. 28 and 31. Both statements ruled out the possibility that the woman had been abducted, saying that the woman, surnamed Yang, and a man, surnamed Dong, had registered their marriage in 1998. The authorities said that Yang had previously been treated in hospital for mental illness.
The second statement said that the woman had been taken in by Dong’s father after she was found begging on the streets in 1998. The statement added that she had occasionally beaten the children and Dong’s mother. “To avoid Yang hurting people, Dong used iron chains to restrain her actions temporarily,” the statement said.
The statement said the local police had investigated whether or not Dong had broken the law, without elaborating on Dong’s current situation.
Social media users speculated why Yang appeared to have few teeth, wondering if she had been abused and why local authorities had not stepped in to help her earlier. Public uproar later grew as Dong was spotted in an advertisement for a wedding company. It’s unclear when the advertisement was produced.
What are people saying online?
The video has taken China’s social media by storm, with millions expressing their sympathy for the woman and outrage over her apparent situation. “This is abduction, rape, and imprisonment,” wrote one comment on Weibo, which received more than 120,000 likes.
“Hope the public can pay continuous attention to this incident. She is so miserable! The trafficking of women must be severely punished!” wrote a Weibo user.
Yan Geling, a Chinese American author, wrote in an article on Saturday that “It is the second decade of the 21st century, but a mother of eight is chained to a wall of a hut and regarded as a tool to vent desire!”
“It’s obviously unacceptable that a man suspected of breaking the law is able to advertise.” said a commentary in a since-deleted Weibo post by Legal Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party’s top legal body, the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission.
“A person who locks up his children’s mother in iron chains and is famous for having eight children, is not a ‘positive energy’ story. Moreover, it contravenes social order and good morals,” said the commentary.
Contact reporter Li Hang (hangli@caixin.com) and editor Heather Mowbray (heathermowbray@caixin.com)
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