At the beginning of 2022, a photo of a chained woman found in China’s Xuzhou city went viral. It was discovered she was a victim of human trafficking and was used as the family’s slave. Her gruesome story includes birthing children from various men. This enraged many in China who had lost daughters to human trafficking. Abduction of girls and young women is not uncommon in mainland China, where the ratio is 113 men for every 100 women in the 15–24 age group.
With the shortage of women over the past decades, one might expect that the Chinese citizenry would safeguard the rarer gender, taking extra measures to protect their safety and well-being.
Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case. During the recent zero-COVID lockdowns in China, two women were brutally disciplined and once again unnecessarily tied up. The women were guilty of violating the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strict pandemic rules. While their hands were forcefully tied behind their backs, they were publicly shamed by their zero-COVID policy enforcers. This happened in southern China’s Guangzhou city and sparked anger among netizens and Chinese social media.
