On March 29, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang issued an instruction at the anti-trafficking conference, saying that human trafficking is harmful to the world, and the criminals involved must be resolutely brought to justice and brought to justice.
Beijing-based Duowei News reported on March 30 that this is the third time this month that Li Keqiang has publicly responded to the “chain girl” incident in Feng County, Xuzhou, Jiangsu. The government work report read out by Li Keqiang at the March 5 meeting of the CCP stated that it is necessary to “severely crack down on the crime of abducting and trafficking in women and children, and resolutely protect the legitimate rights and interests of women and children.”
Later, at the meeting of Chinese and foreign reporters after the closing of the two sessions on March 11, Li Keqiang once again took the initiative to respond to the “Chain Girl” incident that was concerned by public opinion, saying, “We are not only saddened by the victims, but also very angry about this incident.”
In January 2022, a video of an imprisoned woman who gave birth to eight children in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, was circulated on the Internet. With the revelation of the truth by multiple investigators, it triggered a huge public controversy, and Chinese folk began to dig deep into the population in China. Trafficking situation.
The more people know the truth, the more angry they are with the CCP government
The New York Times reported on March 2 that lawyers, academics, former journalists and many bloggers helped give the Chinese public a crash course on human trafficking, forced marriage and demographics. They re-did the books, movies, documentaries and news reports about the abduction of women.
The public understands that the CCP’s legal system is only designed to protect men who pay for women who are trafficked. Spending money on a woman could face up to three years in prison, the same sentence as buying 20 frogs, a prominent legal scholar said in a widely shared video. When victims of human trafficking file for divorce, Chinese courts often rule against them, arguing that living with the men is enough to prove a happy marriage.
In China, women, even well-educated women, are easy victims of human trafficking.
These cases abound, and even the CCP state media reports and CCP court documents reveal cases of female victims. For example, a graduate student from Shanghai was kidnapped during a field trip and sold to a hunchbacked man who was rescued 71 days later; a 13-year-old girl in Beijing was kidnapped on her way to school and sold to a man who often beat her man. She had a son when she was 15 and did not escape until she was 19. A young woman from Hangzhou was kidnapped while on a business trip and spent 20 years in a remote village. She was rescued after her son went to college and her parents were notified.
These are the lucky ones. The vast majority of human trafficking victims come from the poorest corners of China, and they are rarely rescued and almost impossible to escape because the entire village is watching them. When caught, they were beaten and imprisoned.
Chinese court documents show that trafficking and resale of women with mental illness is common in some parts of China.
The report pointed out that the more Chinese people understand the experiences of victims of human trafficking, the more angry they are at the Chinese government’s contradictory statements about the “chain girl”. They want to know who she is, how the government will prosecute those responsible for her tragic situation, and how the government will help other women like her.
The New York Times reports that the Chinese government has no serious plans to eradicate human trafficking and forced marriage, and instead appears to be more interested in taking back control of public opinion.
The CCP has been trying to control public opinion
Born in Feng County, Xuzhou, Wang Shengqiang is the producer, director, and media person of China.com’s “Interview with Famous Experts” column. He was arrested by the CCP for revealing that the chain girl was a missing 12-year-old Sichuan girl Li Ying, not the Yunnan girl Xiaohuamei that the CCP officially insisted. Authorities suppressed and silenced him.
Wang Ruiqin, a former member of the Qinghai Provincial Political Consultative Conference of the Communist Party of China who lives in the United States and the founder of Light Media, believes that the CCP has recognized the great impact of the “Chain Girl” incident and is taking strict measures to control public opinion.
She told Free Asia, “It (the CCP) has taken all measures, and blocked all Chained Women’s posts, not to mention big V, you can’t even post a Chinese V.”
Wang Shengqiang disclosed on Weibo on March 27 that the police went around asking about his residence and found his home in Beijing late at night. He told netizens that if his Weibo was stopped, he would be taken away by Jiangsu Province.
On the evening of the 28th, Wang Shengqiang’s Weibo has been banned, and his current situation is unknown.
In addition to Wang Shengqiang, the post-90s Anhui girl Wuyi was also arrested for supporting the “chain girl”. After her release in February, she revealed that she was tortured by the police in Feng County, Xuzhou, in the detention center. Because she continued to pay attention to the “chain girl”, she was arrested again by Xuzhou police on March 1.
Wu Yi is currently being held under residential surveillance in Pei County, Xuzhou, and is accused of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. Her lawyer has also been banned from meeting.
The CCP’s official crackdown on abduction may be just a show
After Li Keqiang made a public statement on human trafficking, Zhao Kezhi, the Minister of Public Security of the Communist Party of China, who attended the anti-trafficking meeting on March 29, also showed a tough stance, claiming that not only should we build a “new pattern of anti-trafficking”, but also “deeply carry out special projects to combat the crime of trafficking in women and children.” Action”, “Strictly and swiftly punish trafficking crimes”, and “form a powerful deterrent”.
In order to quell the anger of the people over the “Chain Girl” incident, the CCP official recently announced that from March 1 to December 31, the police will launch a special operation against the crime of trafficking in women and children across China. The CCP’s procuratorial organ also stated that it will cooperate with the police to severely punish crimes of human trafficking and dig deep into the historical backlog. Subsequently, more than a dozen provinces and cities successively announced relevant actions.
However, according to Free Asia, lawyer Lu Tingge, who has continued to pay attention to the “Chain Girl” incident, is not optimistic about this. He believes that the CCP officialdom is more likely to show a formality.
He believes that the public has fully realized that the “Chain Girl” incident is closely related to everyone’s own living conditions and will continue to pay attention, so this incident will not disappear or be forgotten in people’s field of vision.
Chen Guangcheng, a blind rights activist in the United States, also believes that the Communist Party may have removed the Chain Girl incident from the Internet, but it will never be able to erase it from people’s memory.