Chinese bookstore stages 'chain' display in comment on shackled woman video

BOCOM International Holdings

21/02/2022 13:16

By Albee Zhang and Andrew Galbraith
    BEIJING, Feb 21 (Reuters) - A Chinese bookstore draped a one
metre-long metal chain over a table flanked by books on feminism
last week, in an unusually public contribution to outrage over a
video showing a woman shackled by her neck in a village. 
    The video, which came to light in late January, was seen by
millions of people online and caused an outcry about the
treatment of women in China and less discussed issues such as
the trafficking of brides.
    Under pressure from social media users, authorities in the
province of Jiangsu and the county of Feng where the woman lives
eventually detained three people including her husband.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2US0QY 
    The chain at the bookstore, in the city of Hangzhou, near
Shanghai, was accompanied by a banner that read: "Books you
should read about Feng county," videos posted on Chinese social
media platforms showed. Reuters confirmed the display with the
bookshop. 
    Next to the chain were books on male dominance in society
such as Rebecca Sonit's "Men Explain Things to Me" and Pierre
Bourdieu's "Masculine Domination". 
    After a few days, the bookstore had removed the chain by
Sunday night, images posted online showed and a clerk at the
bookstore said. 
    The store wanted to have a female theme, but later took it
down as "it was quite a controversial topic," said the clerk,
who spoke to Reuters by telephone but declined to be named
because of the sensitivity of the matter. 
    China says it seeks to empower women and protect their
rights but restricts activities and discourse - online or
offline - that it feels could agitate social order or suggest
defiance of its authority.
    Reuters could not immediately establish what had happened to
the woman since the outcry. 
    The original video https://twitter.com/manyapan/status/1487726008040050688?s=20&t=I2_1ZVa5twfnzg0-BjJCBQ
 showed her chained by the neck in the kitchen of a shack,
without a coat despite winter temperatures. The video blogger
who filmed her said she had eight children, unusual in China
which restricts the number of children families can have. 
    Authorities have given conflicting accounts of what led to
her being shackled. Officials' initial reaction was to justify
her situation by saying she was mentally unstable.
    In the face of online anger at this explanation, authorities
investigated further and concluded she had been trafficked for
marriage. Two people were detained for people trafficking, and
her husband was held for illegal imprisonment.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2UJ1OE 
    Forced marriage is a phenomenon in some parts of China where
there are less women than men, possibly because of an earlier
one child policy, which led some families to sometimes abort
girl children. The practice has previously been documented in
villages in Jiangsu.

 (Reporting by Albee Zhang and Andrew Galbraith)
 ((Albee.Zhang@thomsonreuters.com;))