Seventeen officials in China’s eastern province of Jiangsu have been sacked, punished or are under investigation over the case of a woman who was found chained up in a hut , which sparked a public outcry. The officials are from the health and propaganda departments, police and the women’s federation, and include the Communist Party chief of Feng county, who was removed from his post, according to a Jiangsu government statement released on Wednesday. Investigators working on the case have also announced a crackdown on abuses of women’s and children’s rights, state news agency Xinhua reported. The woman’s plight came to light in January when video footage of her with a chain around her neck went viral, and an official investigation began last week. The government statement confirmed that the woman’s real name is Xiaohuamei and that she is originally from the southwestern province of Yunnan. It said she had been brought by a trafficker to Jiangsu in 1998 and was twice sold as a bride that year, ending up with a man surnamed Dong in Feng county, Xuzhou. Their marriage certificate was registered in 2000 and her name was changed to Yang. She gave birth to eight children between 1999 and 2020, seven of them boys, according to the statement. It said she was now being treated for a mental illness and receiving medical care. Dong was officially arrested on Tuesday and is in custody, charged with abuse, and he is also being investigated on suspicion of purchasing an abducted woman. The statement also addressed public concern that Xiaohuamei could be a missing Sichuan woman named Li Ying, after their resemblance was pointed out in photos circulating online. However, the authorities said that had been ruled out after DNA testing from Li’s mother. Xinhua reported that there would be a clampdown on rights violations in Xuzhou. “We will work on issues where the rights and interests of groups such as women and children are violated, and identify 10 key areas for further investigation such as mental illness, intellectual disability and restricted personal freedom,” the investigators were quoted as saying. In China, buying trafficked humans gets less jail time than for illegal plants Since Xiaohuamei’s case emerged last month, the Xuzhou and Feng county governments have issued four separate and contradictory statements that appeared to play down her plight, and in doing so stoked public anger. Academics speaking out about the case on social media have had their accounts shut down, while media reports have been censored . A petition calling for the central government to look into the case, signed by 100 alumni of Peking University, was also removed from the internet last week. The official investigation has not eased public concerns over a case that has prompted heated debate over child marriage and women’s rights in China. Wang Zheng, a professor of women’s and gender studies at the University of Michigan, said she did not expect much from the investigation, especially given the censorship and efforts by authorities to play down the case. “Their logic is to silence the public,” she said. Wang added that amending human trafficking legislation would be low-hanging fruit to appease the public, but she questioned whether it could be enforced. A Beijing-based lawyer, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter, also expected changes to the law, as well as more censorship of public discussion around the case. He said many other issues remained unresolved. “These include the government’s guardianship over minors, people with mental illness and other disabilities.”