2 detained in China after trying to visit woman found chained up in hut

Name: 'We need to let the courts hear us': Chinese #MeToo pioneer vows to fight on
Uploaded: 2022-02-16T08:13:54.000Z
Duration: 6 min 54 s
Description: 'We need to let the courts hear us': Chinese #MeToo pioneer vows to fight on

Police hold two women who had tried to see her at a psychiatric hospital and had displayed messages about her on their cars and on social media

Video of the chained woman had sparked outrage and, after initial denials from the authorities, the discovery that she had been trafficked

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The video showing the woman chained to a wall by her neck provoked outrage. Photo: Hexun

Guo Rui

Published: 4:13pm, 16 Feb 2022Updated: 5:02pm, 16 Feb 2022

Police in eastern China have detained two people after they tried to visit a woman who had been chained and locked in a hut in freezing temperatures by her husband.

A Beijing-based lawyer, who could not speak on the record but had been informed about the case, confirmed that two women were detained at the weekend in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, and said that their families were seeking legal help.

Others who had been following the plight of the woman in Xuzhou said that the pair were held by police on Sunday night on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – a catch-all charge often used to stifle dissent. Their identities have not been confirmed.

Calls to Xuzhou police were not answered.

06:54

'We need to let the courts hear us': Chinese #MeToo pioneer vows to fight on

There has been nationwide uproar after a video showing a woman chained up in a hut in Xuzhou last month went viral on Chinese social media.

She was found to be a trafficked woman who had been forced to marry and have eight children, and was said to have been sometimes locked up and chained by her husband since last June after – according to the authorities – she showed signs of mental illness.