Activist Ye Haiyan continues 'dirty battle' for sex workers' rights
She was released from 13 days of detention on June 12 after she scared off three trespassers to her home, soon after she returned from protesting in Wanning, Hainan, outside a school and a government school where a school principal and a government clerk were accused of raping six girls, aged 11 to 14.
Activist Ye Haiyan has been called everything from a hooligan and troublemaker to a prostitute, feminist, sex workers' rights activist and a pro-democracy crusader.
To Professor Ai Xiaoming, a Guangzhou-based scholar and documentary maker, Ye is "a rare and courageous woman who fights the dirty battle for sex workers' rights in China". But some conservatives have described her as a crazy liar who leads a raunchy lifestyle and colludes with hostile foreign powers to create trouble.
She was released from 13 days of detention on June 12 after she scared off three trespassers to her home, soon after she returned from protesting in Wanning, Hainan, outside a school and a government school where a school principal and a government clerk were accused of raping six girls, aged 11 to 14.
On the day of her release, Ye's 13-year-old daughter lay quietly in bed beside her controversial mother, who was busy being interviewed by journalists.
"I'm just happy to have my mum back," she said. "I only began searching my mum's name online a few days ago. I don't really know what she is doing but I think she is helping women and girls who got raped by a principal.
"She's like [the character] V, who can move people and liberate a nation," her daughter, a fan of the movie V for Vendetta, said.