The first-instance judgment of the 6 suspects in the Xuzhou 8-child case was exposed. (Picture / flip from Weibo)
The “Xuzhou 8-child case” that shocked mainland China last year revealed the dark side of private abduction of women and local officials’ cover-up of evil deeds. Three chief officials in Feng County, where the incident occurred, were dismissed for this reason.However, the court charged six suspects on the 7thup to 13 yearsAfter the verdict was released, mainland netizens mightn’t accept it, saying that the punishment was too light.
According to comprehensive land media reports, the mother of 8 children in Xuzhou, whose real name is Xiaohuamei, was born in a rural area of Yunnan Province. Later, due to illness, her speech became abnormal, and she was entrusted by her mother to take her to Suzhou for medical treatment, but she disappeared. It was not until 24 years later, on the eve of the Lunar New Year in 2022, that Xiao Huamei was found “chained around her neck and gave birth to 8 children”, thus exposing the abduction and trafficking of women by her “husband” Dong Zhimin and others.
According to court documents, the abductors Shi Lizhong and Sang Heniu lured Xiaohuamei to Donghai County, Jiangsu Province in 1998 in the name of medical treatment, and then sold her to a farmer surnamed Xu in the county for RMB 5,000. Before Dong Zhimin was exposed, he continued to torture and detain Xiao Huamei by tying him with cloth ropes and chains around his neck. May suffered from schizophrenia as a result.
The Intermediate People’s Court of Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province announced the first-instance judgment on the 7th. Dong Zhimin was sentenced to 9 years in prison for the crime of cruelty and illegal detention; Sentenced to 11 years, 10 years, 13 years, 8 years and 6 months, 8 years in prison and a fine.
For this, mainland netizens angrily criticized the judge’s sentence for being too light. Some even thought that “trafficking of women should be elevated to the death penalty.” Mei was imprisoned and gave birth to 8 children without any reports from the villagers. This shows the clues. He called for the expansion of criminal responsibility and the implementation of law enforcement in order to prevent such things from happening once more.
