Angry citizens demand answers from the authorities: Is the woman chained around her neck a victim of human trafficking and the demographic distortion caused by her former one-child policy?
Just before the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics, a video of a middle-aged woman staining in a doorless outdoor shed appeared in Douyin, China’s Tiktok. He was chained from his neck to the wall with a metal chain. The woman stood sheltered in cold weather without a coat in Fengxian, a rural area in eastern Jiangsu Province.
The video was uploaded by a Chinese man who had seen the woman and decided to publish what he saw on social media.
The fate of a woman touches
A chained woman has become the hottest topic in China. There is a particular debate about the trafficking of women as wives to men in remote areas.
At its peak, the woman was discussed more on Chinese social media in Weibo than the ongoing Winter Olympics combined.
Some are so turbulent that the censorship authority is unable to remove all updates. The related hashtag, or topic tag, has been read billions of times. Today, the subject had been viewed a hundred million times by this afternoon.
– Beijing is hosting the Winter Olympics, but in the Xuzhou area, a woman is shackled around her neck like a dog, a Weibon user wrote.
– According to authorities, there are only 17 people living in extreme poverty in Jiangsu Province. Are ten of them members of this family? asked another updater.
China announced last year that it had eradicated extreme poverty.
In China, known for its censorship, the state media has not written much about the scandal. Instead, it has glowed an elite athlete competing in the Chinese Olympic team, which grew widely in the United States. Eileen Gun success.
Citizen journalists seek information when the media doesn’t tell
In China, it is not unheard of for ordinary people to start investigating things as citizen journalists, even though the threat is punishment. When the coronavirus pandemic broke out in Wuhan, a citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was sentenced to four years in prison for the same reason as the women now arrested.
The response shocked the people and demands for in-depth research grew. Authorities then said the woman was from Yunnan Province and a resident of the same village set out to take her in search of treatment and marriage, but disappeared along the way. This infuriated the audience even more.
Women are trafficked to men in remote areas
The scandal has sparked a debate over the trafficking of women for marriage.
Angry Finn commentators wonder why authorities have not noticed that the family had eight children during the one-child policy. They also ask why the husband is not charged with rape but merely with deprivation of liberty.