The sexual rumors story is terrifying in all sorts of ways, maybe because in the US context a rape accusation is more or less a social death sentence. Seems like that's not the case in China if you can get away with making a false accusation of rape so easily.
The story about the dad speaking frankly about the end of his life is lovely, thank you for sharing.
Yup, there is a specific "abducting women and children" law. Technically, it doesn't have a maximum sentence. So it's not a strictly lighter crime than false imprisonment + kidnapping + rape + assault + whatever put together. I think it was originally established to cut down on the amount of paperwork, because women and children being abducted was happening on such a mass scale that it would be unwieldy to have to go through and prove each of those crimes separately. However, you might notice a big loophole in "abducting women and children" as a crime.
It only prosecutes the person who abducted the women and children. As of right now, purchasing a woman is literally not a crime.
Due to the gender imbalance and the government's urgent need for men to find wives and produce lots of children (because this one-child policy thing did way more damage than anyone imagined), it also means that even the seller tends to be sentenced very lightly.
A legal professor famously joked that, "In China, if you sell a panda, it's a death sentence. If you sell a woman? Usually just about 3 years. If you rape a panda, it's a death sentence. If you rape a woman? Usually not more than five days."
It actually get quite a bit of media attention, because there are just....so, so many abducted women and children in China. The government will censor specific cases--like the Chained Woman case got censored because her father is probably a war hero, and it's super embarrassing for the government to fail to protect the only daughter of someone who literally died for the government. There's a really strong movement on the Chinese internet calling for buyers and sellers to both be guilty, this is one of those efforts. But as far as I can tell, this movement has literally been going on for over a decade, and nothing has happened as a result of it.
I strongly believe that the only reason this problem is so bad in China is because the government is outright encouraging it. Because they believe that large numbers of single men who know they have no hope of ever having a wife is more unstable for society than a couple hundred thousand missing women every year.
That, and it's not realistic for the government to actually enforce buyers being just as culpable as sellers anyhow. Because you can't just imprison the entire population of entire counties overnight.
The fundamental problem with cases like the Chained Woman is that there are millions more like her. There were 48,100 other women kidnapped and held as sex slaves in that county *alone*. It's hard to tell what percentage of the population are birthed because of these women. But the amount of people involved in this problem are too high for the government to enforce.
It's sort of like legalising marijuana--once a certain percentage of your population is already doing marijuana, there's just no point in you continuing to insist it's illegal. You're just making yourself look bad at that point. If enough of your population is dependent on sex slaves to function, then you just have to kind of accept that that's gonna be a thing now.
The sexual rumors story is terrifying in all sorts of ways, maybe because in the US context a rape accusation is more or less a social death sentence. Seems like that's not the case in China if you can get away with making a false accusation of rape so easily.
The story about the dad speaking frankly about the end of his life is lovely, thank you for sharing.
Is there a specifc “abducting women and children” law? Why is that there?
Yup, there is a specific "abducting women and children" law. Technically, it doesn't have a maximum sentence. So it's not a strictly lighter crime than false imprisonment + kidnapping + rape + assault + whatever put together. I think it was originally established to cut down on the amount of paperwork, because women and children being abducted was happening on such a mass scale that it would be unwieldy to have to go through and prove each of those crimes separately. However, you might notice a big loophole in "abducting women and children" as a crime.
It only prosecutes the person who abducted the women and children. As of right now, purchasing a woman is literally not a crime.
Due to the gender imbalance and the government's urgent need for men to find wives and produce lots of children (because this one-child policy thing did way more damage than anyone imagined), it also means that even the seller tends to be sentenced very lightly.
A legal professor famously joked that, "In China, if you sell a panda, it's a death sentence. If you sell a woman? Usually just about 3 years. If you rape a panda, it's a death sentence. If you rape a woman? Usually not more than five days."
That is a pretty wide loophole! Do people normally talk about this law? Obviously it's not too censored if the legal professor can joke about it!
It actually get quite a bit of media attention, because there are just....so, so many abducted women and children in China. The government will censor specific cases--like the Chained Woman case got censored because her father is probably a war hero, and it's super embarrassing for the government to fail to protect the only daughter of someone who literally died for the government. There's a really strong movement on the Chinese internet calling for buyers and sellers to both be guilty, this is one of those efforts. But as far as I can tell, this movement has literally been going on for over a decade, and nothing has happened as a result of it.
Right I never made that connection on the chained woman. It does feel like an easy win for the Chinese Govt to close this loophole though right?
I strongly believe that the only reason this problem is so bad in China is because the government is outright encouraging it. Because they believe that large numbers of single men who know they have no hope of ever having a wife is more unstable for society than a couple hundred thousand missing women every year.
That, and it's not realistic for the government to actually enforce buyers being just as culpable as sellers anyhow. Because you can't just imprison the entire population of entire counties overnight.
The fundamental problem with cases like the Chained Woman is that there are millions more like her. There were 48,100 other women kidnapped and held as sex slaves in that county *alone*. It's hard to tell what percentage of the population are birthed because of these women. But the amount of people involved in this problem are too high for the government to enforce.
It's sort of like legalising marijuana--once a certain percentage of your population is already doing marijuana, there's just no point in you continuing to insist it's illegal. You're just making yourself look bad at that point. If enough of your population is dependent on sex slaves to function, then you just have to kind of accept that that's gonna be a thing now.
That does make logical sense even if it's super sad. Thanks for your insights as always