China’s chained woman scandal: public anger persists as investigations, censorship ‘raise more questions’
- The efforts to draw a line under the case have seen junior officials punished and the media censored but people are continuing to ask questions
- Journalists and activists say the authorities have failed to address concerns about human trafficking or the woman’s fate
“Although the latest government statement was very long and dealt with punishments for a lot of people, this affected mostly lower ranking officials,” said Fang Kecheng, assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a former journalist with Guangzhou-based liberal newspaper Southern Weekly.
Fang added that a 6,000-word statement released on Wednesday by the Jiangsu government “did not show reflection and handling of the issue of trafficking on the systemic level”, which failed to appease the public after the case triggered an intense public debate.
The woman’s plight came to light last month when video footage of her with a chain around her neck, apparently kept there by the man she was married to, went viral.
Authorities initially denied that the woman, who is mentally ill and has eight children, was a trafficking victim.
However, they contradicted this in a later statement that said she was trafficked from the southwestern province of Yunnan and twice sold as a bride in 1998, ending up with a man surnamed Dong.