Chinese public outcry over chained woman in video spurs provincial-level probe
- Footage on social media of the woman chained by her neck was initially dismissed by local authorities before it emerged that she had been trafficked
- State media says task force will conduct a comprehensive investigation, as questions persist about the woman’s identity and circumstances
The Communist Party committee and government of the eastern province have set up a task force to conduct a comprehensive investigation, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday.
“All facts will be thoroughly investigated,” said a statement read by the broadcaster. “Criminal activities will be severely penalised according to the law and relevant officials in charge will be held accountable, while conclusive findings will be immediately released to the public.”
A video circulating last month on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, showed a middle-aged woman standing in the corner of a shed shackled by her neck, apparently kept there by her husband. The shed was in Feng county, under the jurisdiction of Xuzhou city in Jiangsu province.
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They initially said that the chained woman had been married legally to the man since 1998 and that she had been diagnosed with a mental illness. They also said that the woman – who had eight children with the man – was not a trafficking victim.
The local government has received heavy criticism online for a response that was labelled inconsistent and flawed.
As the anger continued, the authorities eventually retracted their denial that it was a case of human trafficking and arrested the husband, 55. He was charged with illegal imprisonment, while a 48-year-old woman and her 67-year-old husband were arrested on suspicion of human trafficking.
The case has sparked intense debate over child marriage and highlighted the decades-old issue of trafficking of women in China.
On Tuesday, graduates of two elite Chinese universities published petitions publicly calling on the central government to investigate the case thoroughly.
A petition signed by more than 100 alumni of Peking University, verified by the South China Morning Post, was swiftly removed from Chinese social media by censors. Dozens of graduates of Tsinghua University posted a similar petition on Twitter.
Photos posted of people displaying slogans calling for a top-down investigation were also quickly scrubbed from mainland Chinese cyberspace.
