Five believers in China and US offer reflections on the tragedy still dominating WeChat discussions.
Last month, a short video of a “mother of eight children” in the countryside of Xuzhou, a large city northwest of Shanghai, caused an uproar on the Chinese internet. The footage showed a woman with iron chains around her neck answering a visitor’s questions with a slurred accent in a freezing shed with old, cold food on the floor. The image of the poorly dressed woman with disheveled hair and missing teeth shocked the nation.
Millions of Chinese netizens expressed concern for her, wondering if she was a victim of human trafficking and abuse, and criticized the local government ’s inaction. While officials have investigated the situation, the inconsistencies of their reports—as well as lingering questions about the woman’s origin, identity, and mental and physical health—have sustained heated online discussions, although many critical responses have been censored.
Chinese Christians in China and overseas have also spoken out online on behalf of the Xuzhou woman. Last week, one writer, “Li’l Engineer Wan,” published an article questioning why the government, which monitors the movement of citizens in its fight to control the spread of COVID-19, is not able to detect human traffickers and protect women and children. WeChat quickly deleted her article. A day later, FRI Chinese reported that several “Chinese American Christians launched a global Christian appeal in solidarity with the chained mother of eight in Xuzhou.”
CT Asia editor Sean Cheng spoke with five Chinese Christians about the incident (for security reasons, those within China use pseudonyms):
- Zhang Rumin, pharmaceutical research scientist and elder of Rutgers Community Church in New Jersey
- Agnes Tan, Christian media worker, Christian counselor, and editor-in-chief of Behold magazine in Los Angeles