Caged in the woods: Chinese mentally ill woman locked up as family can’t afford treatment
Woman exposed to freezing temperatures, bugs and snakes as brother can’t afford better care for her, the latest in a series of similar cases in poorer areas of China
A 42-year-old mentally ill woman has been made by her brother to live in a cage in the woods in a rural area of southern China, according to a newspaper report.
Xiong Ximei was discovered living in the cage in freezing temperatures by an 18-year-old high school pupil, the Legal Evening News reported.
The woman was covered only by a thin blanket in freezing temperatures in the four-square-metre cage close to a village near the city of Kaili in Guizhou province.
“She told me she could put up with freezing cold weather as the worst was the summer,” the school pupil was quoted as saying.
“She would often get attacked by mosquitoes, bugs and snakes. She was so frightened every night that she had to hide in the corner of her bed for fear of snake bites.”
The pupil, Xiao Junyu, along with his friends bought Xiong some clothes, shoes and food and publicised her conditions online to draw attention to the case.