A woman who was found imprisoned in a shed shackled in chains sparking outrage in China over the practice of human trafficking was sold to two ‘husbands’, authorities have said.
The mother of eight, identified only as Xiaohuamei (Little Plum Blossom), was found in a wooden shack on the outskirts of Xuzhou city in Jiangsu province last month wearing thin clothing in the middle of winter and a metal brace around her neck.
The shocking video of her discovery has been viewed billions of times a day on China’s internet, even rivalling the attention given to the Beijing Winter Olympics.
As a result the issue of trafficking women as brides has been thrust into the spotlight in China, after authorities initially dismissed concerns before desperately trying to censor critical comments online about their failure to protect her.
Officials announced Wednesday that they have arrested her husband – identified by his surname, Dong – accused of keeping his wife chained in the shack.
At least 17 local communist party officials have also been punished, and five other arrests – in addition to the husband – have been made.
The mother of eight, identified only as Xiaohuamei (Little Plum Blossom), was found in a wooden shack on the outskirts of Xuzhou city in Jiangsu province last month
Provincial authorities said the woman – who is now 44 – was found to have schizophrenia and had been sold several times, including once in 1998 for 5,000 yuan (£580), after being taken from her village in southwestern Yunnan province.
Xiaohuamei was born in 1977 and first married in 1995. She divorced in 1997 and returned to Yagu village in Yunnan.
A year later, a woman surnamed Sang brought her from Yagu all the way to coastal Jiangsu province, about 1,200 miles away, under the guise of getting medical treatment and finding a husband.
But Sang then sold her to a man in Donghai county for 5,000 yuan ($790), Jiangsu authorities said.
They said Sang and her husband had both been sentenced to jail in 2000 for trafficking girls – one for five years and the other for seven.
Both were arrested on Tuesday.
After just a few months with the man in Donghai county, Xiaohuamei disappeared one morning. She ended up in Feng county, where the video showing her chained up was shot, as the result of further trafficking, according to official’s report.
The shocking video of Little Plum Blossom’s discovery has been viewed billions of times a day on China’s internet, even rivalling the attention given to the Beijing Winter Olympics
A couple who ran a hotel in neighbouring Henan province found the woman wandering as a beggar and took her in, according to the report.
After a month, they sold her to a construction foreman who then sold her to a man in Feng county.
This man then sold her to Mr Dong’s family that she would ‘marry into’ and end up having eight children in. Investigators said this chain of events was still under examination.
The husband was formally arrested on Tuesday along with two other people accused of trafficking, authorities said, and investigations are ongoing against six others allegedly involved in trafficking her.
Officials said ‘special actions to comprehensively and thoroughly investigate and rectify the violation of rights’ were being taken.
The case continued to generate anger on Wednesday, with a related hashtag on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform attracting 580 million views shortly after the news of the punishments came.
‘The credibility of our government has long been lost,’ one user said of the latest statement. ‘You haven’t shown us evidence.’
Others called for a national crackdown on trafficking.
Officials announced Wednesday that they have arrested her husband – identified by his surname, Dong – accused of keeping his wife chained in the shack. At least 17 local official have also been punished, and other arrests have been made
China’s one-child policy – only relaxed in 2016 – has led to a shortage of women due to a traditional preference for boys.
The resulting gender imbalance is believed to have fuelled human trafficking, according to a United States congressional report.
The footage was first posted on Chinese social media sites by an online blogger days before the recent Lunar New Year holiday, who found the woman while visiting the area to advertise charity efforts in rural parts of the country.
It has led to questions over the treatment of women and the failure to crack down on alleged abuse, and after local officials responded with a series of inconsistent statements, the Chinese public only grew angrier, demanding accountability.
One woman said on social media she tried to visit the mother but was stopped by police and told she had been sent to hospital.
Some have called for a boycott of products from Fengxian, while others have made signs of support reading: ‘The world has not abandoned you. Your sisters are coming.’
The activism has prompted alarm in the totalitarian country that it could grow into a Chinese #MeToo case, which authorities have previously clamped down on.
Bride trafficking is a major problem in China after decades of family planning resulted in a shortage of boys.
Under Chinese law, buying a trafficked woman carries a sentence of less than three years in prison.