‘Insult to civilisation’: dead girl, 16, sold for US$9,300 as ‘ghost bride’ in China shocking social media, sparking call to ban ‘corrupt custom’
- Girl took own life, aged 16, after emotional abuse by adoptive parents
- Ancient tradition believes unmarried dead will not be blessed in afterlife
A man in China has accused the adoptive parents of his 16-year-old daughter of selling her as a “ghost bride” after she committed suicide.
However, while the police have been able to track down the 66,000 yuan (US$9,300) bride price transfer, they say there are no grounds for a prosecution.
The man, surnamed Sun, from eastern China’s Shandong province, said his biological daughter, Xiaodan, committed suicide by jumping from her ninth-floor home last December after long-term emotional abuse by her adoptive parents.
Sun said he and his wife put Xiaodan up for adoption in 2006 because they already had twins and could not afford to raise her. They visited her sometimes, pretending to be relatives of the adoptive family.
Sun accused the adoptive parents of “marrying” her to a young dead man, surnamed Zhang, after she died, and receiving a 66,000-yuan (US$9,300) bride price from his parents.
Ghost marriages have a 3,000-year history in China and are still practised in certain less-developed rural areas.