The video has racked up more than 2 billion views since its release on January 28. After the shock wave created by the Peng Shuai affair, China has been shaken in recent days by another scandal: that of a mother living in chains like a slave.
The 52-year-old mother of eight children from 2 to 23 years old, the woman visible in the video, whose name is said to be Xiao Huamei, has aroused great emotion not only in China but also around the world.
China: the video of a slave woman shakes the whole country
#franceinfo channel 27 pic.twitter.com/8reSOVAPUj
— franceinfo plus (@franceinfoplus) February 10, 2022
Filmed on January 28 by a blogger, the sequence revealed the deplorable living conditions of the fifty-year-old, with a padlock on her neck, chains linking her to the wall of her dilapidated living space and frozen and unappetizing food. .
The discredited husband’s version
According to the version of her husband, visible in the video, the latter would suffer from mental disorders, which would explain the special treatment intended to treat her while keeping her away from her children. On the other hand, for many Internet users, Xiao Huamei would have been kidnapped and then sold in order to marry him.
While many questions have remained unanswered about the nature of their relationship, one unknown remains: how could this couple have eight children when the one-child policy was abolished in China only in 2015?
Censorship ahead of the Olympics
Having gone viral in the country in a few days, with more than two billion cumulative views, the video was censored by the Chinese authorities ahead of the opening of the Beijing Olympics.
According to Le Monde, more than 48,000 women were bought by Chinese peasants in the 1980s.
