The images of a mother of eight who was found chained by the neck to a shed in a rural area of China have generated outrage inside and outside the Asian country.
The video, which was initially shared on the so-called Chinese TikTok, Douyin, in late January, shows the woman wearing a metal necklace outside a dirty house in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province.
The mother , identified as Xiao Huamei, wears only a sweater despite the frigid weather in Fengxian County.
In part of the video, the blogger gives a coat to the woman, who seems to have language problems.
Some netizens wonder if the woman is mentally ill, and if she was forced to have their children; one was recently born.
Liu Ruishuang, deputy director of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Law at Peking University, told The Washington Post that he fears it is a case of human trafficking.
“The video is really too scary. Everyone is paying attention because we can’t imagine ourselves in this situation, and it’s quite scary,” Ruishuang said. “Is this the case that we should fear every day that we are also victims of (human) trafficking?”, he exposed.
The authorities denied that this is a case of this nature and maintained, first, that the woman suffers from schizophrenia.
Local officials later gave two other versions : the first indicating that the woman’s relatives held her captive only when she was unstable. They then indicated that the woman had been sent by relatives to the rural area to get married, but that she disappeared.
It is not clear where the woman is at the moment or if she was transferred to a health or care center.
2022