Bury the Rusty Chain with Echoing Words of Courage –
What We Don’t Get Told About Female Trafficking in China
In the bleak grip of winter, with the wind howling outside, a solitary woman shivers in a dark corner, bound by chains and clad in meager garments. Her name? Xiaohuamei, a woman trafficked and forced to birth 8 children in Fengxian, China. The length of her sentence? 24 years. Her abduction has never been reported by official media.
It might be more palatable to believe the situation described is an isolated incident not representative of the broader reality in China. The sobering truth remains that the tragedy of Xiaohuamei is just a grain in the sand.
Zhongmoumou, also from the same village, has mental challenges making her unable to care for herself. Her fate is also unknown, save for the fact that her husband, fuelled by envy of Xiaohuamei’s family's receipt of donations from live streaming, proposed selling her to a blogger for cheap. Instead, Zhongmoumou was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. A year later, how she became disabled and from where she was abducted, all remain a mystery. No media outlet has shared her story.
As discussed by Alvernia University, the “agenda-setting theory” explains how we see only what the media wants us to see. This censorship obscures the true scope of the problem and is dangerous for the victims. Heavy is this worn-out chain that has kept Xiaohuamei locked up for a full 24 years. Maddening is its impact on the mental stability of Zhongmoumou.
Without official media covering such stories, it is left to individuals to bring attention to the plight of the oppressed through other media. Yet the voices of these concerned citizens, as reported by the Times, are in danger. Social media posts related to these women are deleted by officials; two media reporters who investigated Xiaohuamei were apprehended, assaulted, and had their online presence erased. Under this resistance, many important voices are silenced.
The ignorance, numbness, and blindness caused by this silence should embolden all of us. If we remain silent under the corrupt control of power today, our daughters, mothers, sisters, friends, or even you and I may become the next deranged woman in chains, huddled in a dark, freezing hut tomorrow. Our voices are crucial now.
In an era of highly developed internet exposure, the podium and lectern microphones have appeared on every personal phone and computer. Let’s become the master of this microphone by raising active voices. For the sake of our women, we must tear off that rusty, effluvial chain. We must insist on speaking out for these women in distress, because even the smallest voices will converge from this microphone, growing louder and louder until they too cannot be ignored.
Works Cited:
Cao, Aowen, and Emily Feng. “The Mystery of the Chained Woman in China.” NPR, NPR, 17 Feb. 2022, https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/02/17/1080115082/the-mystery-of-the-chained-woman-in-china.
Cordeiro, Vanessa Cezarita. “Bride Trafficking - the Escalating Phenomenon of Forced Marriage and Sexual Slavery in China.” Humanium, 15 Nov. 2022, https://www.humanium.org/en/bride-trafficking-the-escalating-phenomenon-of-forced-marriage-and-sexual-slavery-in-china/.
Fedrick, Mary Anne. “The Agenda-Setting Theory in Mass Communication.” Alvernia Online, Alvernia University, 20 Feb. 2019, https://online.alvernia.edu/articles/agenda-setting-theory/.
Quanbao Jiang, and J Sanchez Barricarte . “Women Trafficking in China.” Asian Women, Xi'an Jiaotong University , 2011, http://e-asianwomen.org/xml/00930/00930.pdf.
Yuan, Li. “Seeking Truth and Justice, Chinese See Themselves in a Chained Woman.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Mar. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/business/china-chained-woman-social-media.html.
