Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu have detained two women who traveled to the home village of a woman found chained in an outbuilding, sparking a wave of public outrage online over rampant human trafficking.
Two women who traveled to Jiangsu’s Feng county in a bid to help Yang ***xia after a video of her living conditions went viral are being held under criminal detention by police, according to an audio recording posted to social media platforms late on Sunday.
“She is suspected of committing a crime,” a police officer at Sunlou police station is heard telling a person who inquires after one of the women. “They will definitely be issuing a notice of criminal detention.”
The post containing the audio clip had been viewed more than six million times on one social media platform by noon on Monday, local time.
Current affairs commentator Cai Shenkun said the local authorities appear to be trying to limit the damage done by the revelations about Yang, who was allowed to marry and have eight children — in contravention of Chinese law and family planning regulations at the time — despite having received a diagnosis of schizophrenia in the days after the video of her chained to a wall went viral.
Cai said a former People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier from Nanchong in the southwestern province of Sichuan has disputed the official claim that Yang is a suspected missing person from Yunnan province, claiming that she is his missing daughter Li Ying, while her uncle has demanded a DNA test to confirm her identity.
“The main question is whether Yang is Xiao Huamei or Li Ying, a girl who went missing in Sichuan,” Cai said. “Local officials are likely looking to make life easier for themselves.”
Amateur analysis done by social media users found strong similarities between photos of Li and photos of Yang.
Cai said the authorities likely don’t want to test to see if Yang really is Li Ying for fear of sparking the ire of military veterans, who have besieged government buildings in recent years over unpaid benefits, pensions and medical bills since their demobilization, leaving many in economic hardship.
“The government is trying to improve the status of demobilized soldiers, and Li Ying’s father served in Tibet for 12 years, so her disappearance could easily make veterans angry,” he said.
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Ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) censors are also deleting content about Yang and other Feng county trafficking cases.
A social media user surnamed Wang, said Feng county has long been notorious as a center for trafficking in women and girls, and a video she tried to repost on the topic was recently blocked.
“The moment I had posted that video they blocked it, so I couldn’t pass on content related to the chained woman,” Wang said.
Scholar Wang Zheng said a number of accounts of WeChat have also been shut down for posting about Yang or Feng county.
“They are now deleting some of the information [about the story] and also shutting down some WeChat accounts,” Wang Zheng said. “This has become routine now for the authorities.”
“Posts about the two women who went to help the chained woman [and were detained] are also disappearing,” he said. “They don’t want people to help each other.”
Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.