This is part 3 of a series on childhood in rural China. Part One. Part Two.
I tried writing this part of the series earlier this weekend, but got stuck every time I tried to find a way to change the topic to one that would help balance it out. Nothing worked. I finally decided that it was a story that needed to be told, and that to soften it in any way, would be a disservice to the students who lived it.
Child abuse in rural China is rampant. From the stories I’ve heard from students I would say that more than half of them were physically or verbally abused. Some of the time it is at the hands of their grandparents or other relatives, or by their teachers, but often it is their own parents.
The first thing you need to understand with this issue is that China has no law concerning child abuse (Note: There are provisions about Minors in the Chinese constitution, but they do not provide any means of actually protecting children). This was highlighted by a case in 2009 in which a young girl was tortured by her parents, but they never faced a criminal trial because there was no law that could be used against them. Under the present law another family member would have to sue the parents, which almost never happens. China also has no equivalent of Child Protective Services, so in the case of the young girl, her mother was never held by police, since she had 3 other children to “raise”.
I had the chance to talk about child abuse with some teachers in Yizhou one night, and asked them how they disciplined their children. They laughed about it, like people often do when they are confronted with something personal and uncomfortable. One of them told me that when his 6 year-old daughter was “naughty”, he would make her kneel on the concrete floor for 1-2 hours. Another said that when her 16 year-old son wouldn’t listen to her she would punch him in the arm or slap his face. Others talked about using a piece of bamboo to whip their children.
The attitude seems to be fairly similar in the cities. The other week brought forward yet another case of teachers abusing their students. In this case a kindergarten teacher burned 7 of her students on the face with a hot iron because they had been “naughty”. I talked with my co-worker, Grace, about this, expecting her to be outraged since her daughter is the same age as those who were burned. Instead she took the teacher’s side, “What else could she do?” Grace said, “They weren’t listening to her.”
Children can be criticized for almost anything. I even had a friend whose father didn’t talk to him for a week because he needed glasses. The father had shouted “How could you be so careless! You should have protected your eyesight!”
Note: the next two stories are disturbing.
One of Kyle’s students had been left behind in the countryside to live with her aunt and uncle while her parents worked in the factories of the East Coast. One day a neighbor came to the house and claimed that she had killed one of their chickens, and she insisted that she hadn’t. As a result of her “insolence” her uncle beat her so badly that she lost a tooth. When she called her parents crying about what had happened, begging them to let her move to the coast with them, they told her she should not be such an awful girl.
Another student told me that one morning she had been walking to school with her younger brother when someone pointed out that he had the bigger part of the apple, and that it was because he was a boy. The student was mad, because she knew that it was true, and so in defiance she threw away her part of the apple. When she returned home that night her mother was enraged, one of the neighbors had seen her throw away the apple. Her mother grabbed her by the arm and dragged her down to the river. Pulling her daughter close, she jumped into the river, and neither of them could swim. She shouted at the student that she would rather die than raise a disobedient child. After 5 or 10 minutes of struggling to breathe, the mother finally brought her to shore.
This article is also partially in response to an article on Chinese-style parenting that appeared in the WSJ the other day.
[…] Pingback: Abuse in Rural China | Seeing Red in China […]
[…] Part 3 […]
An interesting article – as well as the link you provided to the WSJ article (which, honestly, I found to be stereotypical and condescending). But doesn’t this stand in contravention to the stereotype of the pampered little emperors and empresses in society today as a result of the one-child policy of the last 30+ years? Or perhaps this is more localized to rural communities within China? (And, if so, couldn’t the same argument be made about most other nations since the underlying factor would be the poorer rural underclass versus the more well-to-do middle and upper urban class and therefore it is not something specific to China?) Just curious as my own experiences were on the richer coast areas rather than the interior rural areas…
From what I have seen it is more widespread in the countryside, but the lack of legal protection is a large difference between China and many other countries. Also there was a study released in Nov. (I’ll try to find the link) that showed domestic abuse to be almost the same prevalence on the Coast as in the countryside, and was unaffected by wealth or education.
Found the article (http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7211731.html) from People’s Daily, Nov. 26, 2010.
Note that the article is only discussing self-reported cases of physical abuse, so I think my estimate of 50%+ is probably fairly close.
[…] Seeing Red in China My life in their world Skip to content HomeAbout MeMap of China ← Abuse in Rural China […]
[…] had reported a month ago on the dire situation in China related to child abuse, and the lax system that was content to call it a “private matter” that was not something the […]
[…] with many of the topics we’ve covered in past posts, things like the Chinese idea of family, child abuse, factory work, and the crazy migration that is Spring Festival (200+million people heading […]
[…] Abuse in rural China […]
[…] Another study showed that virtually every rural school teacher had used physical abuse in their classroom. These teachers are rarely punished for their actions as I showed in my post “Abuse in rural China“. […]
[…] 另一项研究显示，几乎每一个乡村教师都会在课堂上对学生进行身体体罚，而这些老师却很少因为这种行为而被惩罚，正如我在另一篇文章《中国农村的不当体罚》中所写的那样。 […]
[…] The biggest lesson from this article is that China does not have laws that actually protect women and children from domestic abuse, something I covered in an earlier post […]
The story is horrible and they should have laws to protect the children like they do here in the US. Every state country etc. should all have laws to protect the children of the world. Child abuses are disguesting and deserve everything horrible in life to happen to them.
Can somebody help?
I witnessed a horrible amount of child abuse in a public place today. I felt so helpless to help the kid. Is there anything I can do? Is there a number I can call? I live in Shanghai.
[…] “picking quarrels and provoking troubles.” The paper however fails to mention it is exceedingly rare for family members to be tried for child abuse, as police routinely dismiss it as a “family […]
I also saw marks on my students arm from being caned. Was quite shocked and talked about it with my friends. Nothing I could do for the kid. I myself grew up in an orphanage because the government feared for my safety with my birth parents. Chinese people hardly understand it, and often think that my parents are dead or that my parents were not my biological parents…. Anyway, it’s understandable the misunderstanding considering the above described situation regarding child protection, so I don’t blame them.