Amid human trafficking horrors, China's claims of gender equality ring hollow: Report

For the upcoming 85th session of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which is to be held in Geneva on Friday, China submitted its report where it boasted about its accomplishments in combating the trafficking of women and girls, but "Chained-Woman" story break the shells of lies built by Beijing.

The "Chained Woman" story is traced back to 2021, when a story circulated in China about a man named Dong Zhimin, who was raising eight children in Xuzhou, in China's Jiangsu Province.

On January 27 2022, a Chinese blogger visited Dong's residence and posted footage showing a woman, reportedly the mother of Dong's eight children, sitting on a tattered bed with a chain around her neck in a dark, dilapidated hut. In such harsh cold weather, the woman was dressed inadequately, according to The Diplomat.

The woman had been reportedly locked up like this for more than 20 years and was forced to give birth to eight children in these inhumane living conditions.

The video was quickly spread by concerned netizens, who dubbed the woman the "Chained Woman."

The Chinese authorities repeatedly attempted to minimize the incident and redirect public attention, claiming that the Chained Woman was lawfully married to Dong with no human trafficking involved. As for the chain, the claim was that it was necessary to restrain the woman, who suffered from mental illness.

With growing appeals from angry Chinese citizens for accountability, the government finally had no choice but to respond. On April 7, 2023, a court sentenced Dong to nine years in jail for torture and unlawful confinement and five others to eight to 13 years imprisonment for human trafficking, according to The Diplomat.

Despite public scrutiny, however, Dong was not charged with a single count of rape - even when the situation was ripe for such charges.

Contrary to China's claim in its submission to CEDAW that "there is no reprisal against cooperators with human rights treaty bodies," the CCP arrested the human rights activists and citizen journalists who went to the village to try to investigate the incident and help the miserable woman. Famous intellectuals have also been silenced for commenting on the matter.

In its submission to CEDAW, China asserted that it has legislated "to eliminate discrimination against women, protect women's freedom of marriage, and achieve gender equality." But in practice, China has done little to address the problem. Documents from the verdicts database China Judgments Online show that courts across China have denied many petitions for divorce filed by trafficked women, even after they have endured years of domestic abuse at the hands of their "husbands."

The fact that Chinese women who are trafficked and sold into marriage rarely have any feasible legal recourse can be partly attributed to the indolence, indifference, or moral cowardice of a handful of negligent judges. But the majority of the blame for the gross mishandling of these heartbreaking cases reflects, directly or indirectly, the autocratic CCP regime's wanton disregard for human rights, especially the rights of women in China's patriarchal society. It is clear that the CCP values "social stability" over serious actions to address social problems, as per reported in The Diplomat. (ANI)