710 How did the crazy mother in the countryside go crazy?

Duan Media reporters Zhuo Lin and Laifu mentioned in "Woman who gave birth to eight children, people say she's crazy: Fengxian incident and a public opinion reckoning against trafficking in women" published on February 1, 2022:

On January 28, 2022, different netizens pointed out that the woman in question was bought at the age of 15, was beaten, and was sexually assaulted by Dong Zhimin and his family. These clues come from anonymous chat records, which are difficult to verify. Some netizens compared the photo of the person concerned with the missing child named "Li Ying" on the family tracing website "Baby Home", and thought that "looks a bit like". This Weibo has been forwarded more than 240,000 times. Netizens searched for the characters frame by frame in the short video and compared them with Li Ying's photos. The story of Li Ying's deceased armed police father's longing for his daughter and the story of Yang Xia were spliced together, triggering more sadness and anger.

Numerous old stories have been re-examined to show that the trafficking of women as reproductive machines is not an isolated case. For example, the story of Cao Xiaoqing reported by Inner Mongolia Morning News in 2006, Cao Xiaoqing, a female college student from Sichuan, was abducted and sold to Inner Mongolia, where she was forced to marry and have children. After the family found them two years later, they did not bring Cao Xiaoqing back. The report wrote: “In the following ten years, Cao Xiaoqing was sold several times, abused, shared as a father and son’s wife, and beaten when he was pregnant.”

A book published in 1989, "Ancient Sins (Records of National Women's Trafficking and Trafficking)" was also circulated on Weibo, which mentioned that "since 1986", a total of 48,000 women have been trafficked to 6 counties in Xuzhou, Jiangsu. The book mentions that many grassroots cadres, government civil servants, and police are all accomplices and buyers in the trafficking industry chain.

The public account of the School of Journalism, Renmin University of China, RUC News, published a data news report titled "Abducted Women: 1,252 Lives Priced | Shuoshuo". The details of the violence are shocking. Among the bids for buying and selling women, the price is less than 10,000 yuan. The most frequent occurrence. In addition, a large number of news reports of "picking up a mentally ill wife" also confirmed the prevalence of trafficking.

Oral accounts of ordinary people’s experiences of being abducted and trafficked are also scattered in all corners of social media. Stories about my mother being abducted and trafficked, a woman I knew was abducted and trafficked, and I was almost abducted and trafficked, happened at stations, roads, school gates and other places, day or night, forming a vast map of China's abduction and trafficking.

Although after the first notification from Fengxian County on January 28, the official media "Guangming Daily" reported the result on Weibo with a picture of white characters on a blue background (often used by the police), with the words "no abduction and trafficking" in large characters. Conspicuously centered. The official announcement of "white characters on a blue background" has played a decisive role in many controversies, but this time it has caused more doubts.

"Lucky" and "luck" have become words for many women to express anger and fear. "I am often afraid that I will be dragged in by a van parked on the side of the road one day, and I will be gone in this world, and there will be a young and usable womb in the place where the sun can't shine. Just watch the news. It's not unfounded, it's just that I'm lucky so far, how long can I be lucky?" one Weibo netizen wrote. "I feel more and more that I am lucky to live. I am a girl whose mother was strong enough to protect me from miscarriage; I am a teenage girl who went to school alone but was not kidnapped; I can have the opportunity to study without having to trade my life. The girl who received the bride price." Another Weibo netizen wrote about the possible changes a girl might experience in her "ordinary" life, and it was reposted nearly 20,000 times, triggering general empathy and collective stress. Some netizens also pointed out that this wide-ranging empathy is due to the middle-class attributes of the women in Feng County who have "beautiful faces and can speak English."

The most poignant moment of public opinion was when Ma Panyan, the person involved in the Wushan child bride-in-law incident, wrote on January 29 and January 30 about her and her mother's experiences of being abducted and trafficked many times. Among them, her mother, as a mental patient, was repeatedly beaten, raped, and trafficked. The word weeps blood. Ma Panyan made a strong question at the end of the article: "Or crazy mothers are only crazy when they are beaten, they are only crazy when they give birth to daughters, they are crazy only when they are disobedient, and they only cook less than cows and eat more than chickens. She is crazy most of the time, otherwise why would everyone not be afraid of her and want to take it home? My mother is a mentally ill murderer, and when she is put back into the village, isn’t everyone afraid of death? Isn’t it because everyone knows how crazy mothers are. What's the matter, so you dare to pick it up and live?"

The two Weibo posts were reposted 170,000 times in total, and one netizen pointed out that the person who sold and raped Ma Panyan has not been punished by law so far.

Ma Panyan, who felt the same way, posted this article on her Weibo, "How Crazy Mothers in Rural Areas Are Crazy?" ":

Wushan June Snow｜How did the crazy mother in the countryside go crazy?

The local government said that the mad mother was chained up because she had violent tendencies. Do you believe it? I don't believe it!

My mom is also a violent crazy mom. In the summer of May 1997, my mad mother had a psychotic episode and accidentally killed my father. She was arrested by the police and identified as a mentally ill person, and was released without charge.

My mother was also legally married to my father, but my mother became mentally ill. After she beat my father to death with a hoe, before the legal trial, she was beaten violently by the villagers. Even if my mother was acquitted and returned home, my uncle often beat her, and my mother didn't marry my uncle or the villagers. Why did they beat her? What qualifications do you have to drive her away? Marriage is legal, can the whole village fight?

After my mother was kicked out by my uncle, the bachelors from the third and fourth families picked up my mother to have children. Are the two marriages behind my mother legal? It has been identified as a mentally ill murderer, how can he be picked up by the old bachelors in the countryside again and again to give birth to children?

After my mother was beaten up by my uncle, she first fled to the fourth aunt's house, and then sneaked into our town from the fourth aunt's house, begging in the town during the day, and sleeping in the straw pile under the eaves of others at night. My mother was only in her thirties. Years old, menstruation, all flow on the pants and wheat straw, no one who knew my mother and saw my mother sympathized with her to help her, but laughed at her as a lunatic. After my mother was begging in the town for a short period of time, she was picked up by an old man from the mountain. The more than 30 yuan on my mother's body was cheated by the beast man. My mom lived with that brutish man for a while and ran away from there too. Because I stayed in the town and the beast man's house in the high mountain for a while, it was almost August and September. It was very cold in August and September in the high mountain, but she was still wearing the clothes she wore when she was driven away by our uncle. A short-sleeved and a skirt, I feel heartache and hate whenever I think of these hardships my mother suffered!

My mother ran down the road and passed the door of a man named (Shi Wanfu) who lived in the yard of Jin's house in Luoping, Wushan. This man is mean and vicious. His younger brother's wife was said to be only 13 years old, she went to their house to play, got together with his younger brother, and gave birth to a child when she was 14 years old. When I was looking for my mother, I went to this man’s house to play for a while. The parents of the man and the man in the village told me: They said that the woman was a relative of their family who went to their house to play, and she was with her brother, and The three brothers shared this girl, but I didn't see this girl when I went to play. I heard that she went to Guangdong to work.

This man has serious violent tendencies. He was the same age as my mother. It was said that he took a wife and beat his wife for a long time. His wife could not bear it and died of pesticides. Later, I found my mother, detained my mother, raped and gave birth to a daughter, and also publicly slept with his sister-in-law. The whole village knew about this. Therefore, since there are already people in this man's family who can have children and sleep, he can still pick up women on the street and give him a marriage. This is not because rural men have no targets or have children, but because women are not treated as human beings, the more people who can be squeezed, the better, the more children, the more labor, and the more subsidies. When many people in the village saw my mother, they also felt sorry for my mother with snot and tears.

My mother was often beaten by the man who stripped her clothes and bleeds blood from her nose and mouth. And every time that beast beats my mother, the door is locked. The neighbors heard my mother's screams and came to help persuade the man not to beat my mother. It would kill people, but they could only knock on the door and shout.

My mother gave birth to my daughter here. When my daughter was two years old, my mother secretly fled back to my grandmother's house. From Wushan to my grandmother's house in Hubei, my mother has no ID card and no money. She doesn't take a car. To eat, I remember that after I found my mother later, my mother told me that she asked someone for a cucumber on the way, and that person would not give it to my mother. My mother knelt down and kowtowed to that person, and that person took a I folded the cucumber in half, took half and folded it in half and gave it to my mother. My mother took it and put it in her mouth because she couldn't swallow it because she was hungry for several days.

After a long journey, I finally came to my grandmother's house, but my grandmother's house was also torn apart, and neither my aunt nor my second aunt could help my mother. My uncle was not married and lived with my grandmother because he was lazy and often drank. The family was very poor, and even my grandmother could not support her, and my uncle did not allow my mother to go to his house. My mother had no choice but to wander outside, and was picked up by an old bachelor from Hubei, and gave birth to another daughter, that is, In 2002, my poor mentally ill mother gave birth to a child in Hubei. At the same time, when I was 14 years old, I was sold to the Chen family and was raped. During this year, I happened to give birth to the eldest daughter of the Chen family.

My mother's last man also treated her badly and often beat her. When her daughter was six years old, they separated through the coordination of the police station. Before we separated, my mother was beaten badly by several men in Hubei. I remember a man hit my mother on the forehead with his palm, knocking my mother unconscious. She was in a coma for three days and three nights. No one to feed the pigs at home. No one cares, it's really pathetic.

A woman who was acquitted of mental illness and was appraised by the police who murdered someone should be sent to treatment, and the treatment should be tracked. Is it tracked? Like my mother, it is also violent. How much violent neurosis does the countryside need to allow such violent mental patients to be born casually?

Or crazy mothers are only crazy when they are beaten, only crazy when they give birth to daughters, only crazy when they are disobedient, only when they cook less than cows, and eat more than chickens, they are crazy, otherwise Why is everyone not afraid of her and want to take it home? Mom is a mentally ill murderer. If she is put back into the village, isn't everyone afraid of death? Isn't it because they all know how crazy mothers are and what it is like to be crazy, so they dare to pick them up and live?

The mother, who has now given birth to eight children, has attracted everyone's attention and has been officially designated as a violent mental patient who is legally married. If the government hadn't actively intervened, would this mother also be kicked out, picked up, and turned into another crazy mother in other rural homes.

This is the first time I know about the Wushan Tong bride-in-law incident, so I went to try to understand the ins and outs of the incident.

Ma Panyan (born in 1988), a native of Wushan County, Chongqing City, is a party to the "Chongqing Wushan Child Bride Incident".

In 1997, when he was 9 years old, his mother beat his father to death due to a mental attack. After being exempted from criminal punishment due to illness, he ran away. Ma Panyan, Ma Panzhen (sister) and Ma Panhui (sister) were raised by their uncle Ma Zhengsong because they were minors and had no source of livelihood.

In 2000, Ma Panyan, who was only 12 years old, was married to a student Chen, who was 17 years older than her, as a child bride. After being raped, she gave birth to a daughter and then a boy. In 2016, it has attracted widespread attention from the society.

At the beginning of 2001, when he was 13 years old, Ma Panyan was sent by his uncle Ma Zhengsong to live with Chen Xue (29 years old) in Wulong Village, Shuanglong Town. Witnessed by local village cadres, the two parties agreed that the Chen family would give Ma Zhengsong 3,000 yuan 'substitute support' and Ma Panyan 1,000 yuan 'love money'. Ma Panyan would be supported by the Chen family before reaching the legal age of marriage, and after reaching the age of marriage, she would be with Chen students. marry. Ma Panyan said that at that time, she was not willing to go to Chen Xueyuan's house to "support" her, but no one asked her for her opinion and sent her directly to Chen Xuesheng's house.

After the Spring Festival in 2001, when he was 13 years old, the Chen family took Ma Panyan to work in Fujian. During this period, Student Chen forcibly had sex with Ma Panyan. In Fujian, the young Ma Panyan could not find a job. After three months, she was sent back to her hometown by the Chen family in Shuanglong Town, Wushan County. In Ma Panyan's memory, after returning to town, she secretly ran to the second aunt's house, and the second aunt accompanied her to the police. At that time, the police of Shuanglong Town Police Station took Ma Panyan to the hospital for examination, and it was confirmed that the hymen was ruptured. However, since his uncle Ma Zhengsong told the police that his niece had already married Student Chen, the police dismissed it as a family dispute.

In October 2002, at the age of 14, Ma Panyan gave birth to her first daughter.

In 2007, at the age of 19, Ma Panyan gave birth to a son.

In 2008, at the age of 20, Ma Panyan was "married" even though she had not gone through any formalities or signed any documents. In the system of the civil affairs department, she had a marriage registration record with Chen's student.

In 2016, at the age of 28, after the incident of Ma Panyan was reported by the media, it attracted much attention. On May 4, Ma Panyan went to the Shuanglong police station to report the case, accusing Student Chen of forcibly having sex when he was a minor and raping the young girl; uncle Ma Zhengsong and uncle Luo Yuandao abducting and selling the young girl; On June 4th, Ma Panyan and Chen Xuexi divorced through court mediation. The children born by Ma Panyan and Chen Xuexue were raised by Chen Xuexue.

On February 24, 2017, the Propaganda Department of the Wushan County Party Committee published "Wushan County Government Spokesperson Answers Reporters' Questions About Ma Panyan's Relevant Situation" (hereinafter referred to as "Situation Statement") on the website Wushan. After learning of Ma Panyan's unfortunate experience, the Wushan County Party Committee and County Government instructed the County Commission for Discipline Inspection, the County Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the County Procuratorate, the County Public Security Bureau, and the County Civil Affairs Bureau to form a joint investigation team to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the problems reported by Ma Panyan. However, the Wushan county government refused to admit that Ma Panyan was abducted and raped.

At the same time, Jade Li, a Chinese student studying in Hong Kong, was also searched. In 2017, she posted a bizarre encounter on Facebook. This little story can be a small note for this absurd era:

Ma Panyan, the party of Wushan Tong's bride-in-law. At the age of 12, he was sold by his uncle for 4,000 yuan to the home of 29-year-old Chen Xue Xue, who was raped at the age of 13, and gave birth to a daughter at the age of 14.

Since May 2016, a number of media, led by the Beijing Times, have reported on this matter. Up to now, the Beijing Times, Southern Weekend, Chongqing Morning Post, Global Times, South China Morning Post, and China Women's Daily have all reported on the matter. report.

At the beginning of April, I contacted Ma Panyan herself, hoping to interview her and complete my final report for this semester. She was actively seeking media exposure, so she readily accepted. After many setbacks, I booked a flight to Chongqing tonight, hoping to finish the interview while she was seeing her daughter.

What I didn't expect was that the plane was delayed again and again. I was waiting bored at the airport when I suddenly received multiple messages from my parents claiming that the authorities had spoken to them, blacklisted me and restricted me from leaving the country if I did not immediately suspend the interview.

Having been on the Chinese Internet for many years, I have long been familiar with the shameless methods of the Chinese Empire, but when all this happened to me, I was still shocked and stunned.

Ma Panyan's various contact information has been monitored. I had expected it, but I couldn't believe it. The authorities were so afraid of a 20-year-old female student's final assignment (which would not be published), and they were afraid that it would be less than a day before I entered the country. My family was quickly contacted and threatened within hours.

As a civilian, I am powerless to fight against the huge state apparatus, and considering my personal safety, I can only return here. It's a pity that I couldn't meet Ma Panyan and complete the interview. Today, this matter is made public in the hope that everyone who can see it on the homepage will stop having any illusions about this country. This country does not solve problems, it only solves the people who ask them.



Reviewing the personal experience of interviewing and reporting cases of abducted women and missing children, the commentator CP pointed out that it is often not human traffickers who are punished, but those who expose human trafficking.

The picture of people in chains reminds people of the plot in the movie "Blind Mountain", as well as the same experience of Ma Panyan, the party involved in the Tongyang-daughter case in Wushan County, Chongqing, which attracted public attention a few years ago. In fact, violent detention and abuse are commonplace in cases of trafficking in women. In 1999, I and my colleagues from Southern Weekly went to Xinyi Mountains in Guangdong to investigate the phenomenon of trafficking in women. In those remote mountain village families, the proportion of "buying a daughter-in-law" is as high as 50%. In my report at the time, I wrote: "At the hands of these traffickers, many girls have been detained, raped and raped, so when it comes time to trade, they often can't wait to follow the buyer—the future 'husband', and even get pregnant. With gratitude."

It is not surprising that Feng County's official conclusion that "there is no trafficking" has been questioned. In any hard-hit area of human trafficking, it is known to everyone who bought a daughter-in-law, but the local officials never actively confirm "the existence of human trafficking", but actively participate in and maintain the human trafficking network. Only when the victim's family members come to the door through the local police, or during symbolic crackdown activities such as the "Rescue Abducted and Trafficked Women Action Month", will the local police have to "rescue" it as a last resort. Even so, in the ten years up to 1999, the police in Xinyi City announced that more than 7,000 abducted and trafficked women had been rescued.

Many people do not understand why in the story of the movie "Blind Mountain", the Chongqing police did not go directly to the local village to enforce the law through the Shaanxi police. In fact, this is quite common in such rescue operations. If it passes through the local police, it is very likely that the information will be leaked, and the person concerned will be immediately hidden. Out-of-town police often first raided and rescued the person concerned, and then sought assistance from the local police and government. Even so, as the Blind Mountain international finale reveals, rescue may not be successful.

For the police in the victim's hometown, this is not simply "performing official duties". Human trafficking is a criminal offense in China. When the police solve criminal cases and rescue victims, should they first collect "rescue fees" from the families of the victims before taking action? This kind of absurd thing has almost become a routine in the case of Chinese police rescuing abducted women and children. Not only that, the police charge more expensive and less efficient than some private relative tracing companies.

In 2006, I served as the deputy editor-in-chief of Southern Metropolis Weekly and dispatched reporters to investigate missing children across the country. We found that thousands of missing children are recorded every year in China, and the police refuse to open the vast majority of cases, and even refuse to provide ready-made surveillance video.

This kind of story is repeated over and over again: the family of the missing child and even the entire family are devastated and have gone bankrupt to search for their child for many years. By chance, they saw the surveillance video that the police refused to provide, and recognized that the child was taken away by an acquaintance. If the video had been seen in time, the traffickers could have been caught immediately and the child victims could have been rescued. Few of the police were punished afterwards.

According to the report, desperate parents from Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangdong and Henan provinces established the National Child Search Alliance and obtained information on thousands of missing children, but it was still difficult to rescue them. The report listed 593 missing children verified by reporters.

That report won CCTV's "Cover Report Award" that year. I went to CCTV with reporter Su Ling to attend the awards show.

Today, it seems that the report won the award on CCTV, in addition to the reporter's arduous interviews and detailed reports, but also because, like all domestic media reports, the focus is on the family (alliance) looking for children and the human trafficking network. Fight, not expose and hold the government accountable.

Human trafficking is often attributed to social poverty and traditional practices. In fact, if we think about it, a Chinese official order or a campaign can make the sex workers who have existed since ancient times disappear overnight, and can make the Chinese farmers who dream of "the tillers have their own fields" obediently hand over their land. It can make fathers and sons turn against each other and expose each other in the Chinese society where "filial piety is the first", and can implement a harsh family planning policy in the traditional culture of "unfilial piety and no descendants", and what social poverty and traditional customs can stop it them?

So why does the government allow the abduction and trafficking of women and children? The answer is: the commodification and instrumentalization of women and the disregard of the basic human rights of women and children are the inherent essence of a patriarchal society.

In the past few days, a video of a lecture by law professor Luo Xiang has been circulating on the Internet. Professor Luo Xiang pointed out that according to Chinese law, illegally buying a parrot carries a maximum sentence of five years; illegally buying one or a dozen (12, meaning many) women is punishable by a maximum sentence of three years, which is equivalent to the maximum sentence for illegally buying 20 toads. Sentence. Therefore, the value of a Chinese woman is not as good as that of a parrot, but only equal to that of a toad.

The reality is even crueler: as we all know, most buyers of abducted women and children will not be held accountable. In fact, the vast majority of human traffickers have not been held accountable. The traffickers in the movie "Blind Mountain" were not held accountable because they were strangers to their victims and designed to escape. Relevant data show that a considerable part of human trafficking occurs between acquaintances. All the victimized women I interviewed back then knew who the people who abducted and trafficked them were. One victim was tricked by her aunt into selling. After the deal, my aunt told her bluntly: "I have sold you." The reason these criminals are so arrogant is because they know they will not be punished.

It is often the people who expose the perpetrators of human trafficking who are punished. For example, the movie "Blind Mountain" was not allowed to be released, and the bidders lost everything. After Feng County officially declared that "there is no abduction and trafficking," people are no longer allowed to talk about the word "abduction and trafficking." According to a Weibo user from Fengxian County, as long as locals mention the two words on social media, they will receive calls from the police, who threaten to know their parents and work institutions.

Ma Panyan, a client of the Tong Biao Daughter-in-law case in Wushan County, Chongqing City, described her and her mother's miserable lives in words that could not be published on her Weibo account ("Wushan June Snow"), and could only be disseminated in the form of pictures. she says:

"About the mother of eight children in Xuzhou, someone asked why no one called the police? Why didn't anyone care? I thought it was the local government that didn't know! After I was sold by my uncle and the villagers at the age of 12, I also experienced being chained with iron chains. In the house, I told everyone about my personal experience. It’s not that no one called the police. The local government police station knew about it. They just didn’t care! Did I ask the government police station to control me?

Reporters Zhao Qiliu and Yi Xiaoai published "Cry from afar: From Eight-Child Mothers to Forgotten Rural Women with Mental Disorders" on February 8, 2022, providing a perspective of the reality dimension:

Different respondents working on mental health issues and disability issues expressed anger about the experience of the "Xuzhou mother of eight children", but they were not as shocked as public opinion.

Wang Ling, who has been working in non-profit organizations in the field of disability, said: "Such (experiences) are actually very common in rural areas. They are the most marginalized and face the most challenges."

In rural areas, the marriage of older unmarried men and women with mental or intellectual disabilities is common. Generally, higher dowry gifts are used, and some are even "picked" directly from outside. In such a "marriage", women do not have any autonomy. They are abducted or their families make decisions instead.

And "married" female mentally handicapped people, their survival situation depends to a large extent on their own mental state. Their situation is exacerbated by aggressive behavior or inability to manage their emotions.

In rural areas where gender inequality and fertility discrimination are more serious, almost all women exist as "someone's daughter-in-law" and are dependents of men. Therefore, in the cognition of many people, how women are treated is a "family matter". Women who suffer from mental disorders and cannot claim their rights are directly transformed from attachment to a burden. "Locking people up to avoid accidents, and stuttering and drinking to keep people alive has become a very rational arrangement in the eyes of the locals."

Since it is regarded as a "burden", why should it be combined with a woman with a mental disorder? Huang Xuetao said: "In low-income areas, women with mental or intellectual disabilities, even if they are defined as disabled and problematic, as a feminine feature, her uterus or vagina is still valuable to men. , will be sold to the bachelors in the countryside."

Similar examples can also be found in the fieldwork of some scholars. Pan Lu, a professor of rural sociology at China Agricultural University, conducted a questionnaire survey on villagers in two villages in a county in Hebei Province and found that 53.3% of the people believed that people with intellectual disabilities could get married and have children, and 73.3% said that it was understandable to marry people with intellectual disabilities. Due to family pressure, "normal people" may also choose to marry people with intellectual disabilities.

In the introduction on the official website, the Fengxian government proudly introduced its own folk customs. In the first place is the birth ritual, that is, the rituals and customs that surround life. The Fengxian government believes that this folk custom embodies "the concern for the continuation of future generations and the love for women and children." However, in Yang Xia, who gave birth to 8 children, the outside world only saw "concern about the continuation of future generations", but there was no "love for women and children" at all.

Behind this folklore is the still strong idea of inheriting the lineage and the distorted reality of easily sacrificing women's rights. A rural man once told Wang Ling that a woman with intellectual disabilities whom he "married" with a betrothal gift of 20,000 yuan, who had physical disabilities, was brought home by the woman's family to "marry again" after giving birth to a child. "Give it to another family, and received another dowry.

At the same time, the experience of Yang Mouxia, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the official report, also revealed another distorted reality. Locking up people with mental disorders has long been taken for granted.

Clinician Wang Hao told Duan Media: "More than 10 years ago, many families in rural areas would chain mentally ill patients at home, and the situation was much worse than now." Hospital work.

Because this situation is very common, the national project "Central Subsidized Local Severe Mental Disorder Management and Treatment Project" started in December 2004 is also called "Unlocking Project". The slogan at the time read: "Unlock one, save a family, stabilize one, and benefit one party". The so-called severe mental disorders mainly include 6 kinds: schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, paranoid psychosis, bipolar disorder, mental disorders caused by epilepsy, and mental retardation associated with mental disorders. This range is still in use today.

According to data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2009, there were about 16 million people with severe mental disorders nationwide. According to the Chinese Health Commission, as of the end of 2017, there were 240 million patients with mental disorders (indiscriminate) in China.

Huang Xuetao said that China has never sanctioned anyone in the name of imprisoning people with mental disabilities and violating their personal freedom. ‍‍“If the court has never punished anyone who violated the personal freedom of the mentally ill, then it is saying that the personal freedom of the mentally ill is not protected.” She believes that among the causes of stigmatization of mental disorders, the legal profession bear inescapable responsibility.

It was not until 2013 that Mainland China officially implemented the "Mental Health Law" that the personal freedom and the right to refuse hospitalization of the mentally handicapped were finally recognized by law and could not be rudely denied. The law is also known as the end of the mainland's history of "being mentally ill" without legal risk.

What further entangles people with mental disorders with stigmatizing allegations of danger and violence is the provision of "criminal immunity" for mentally ill people and the stereotypes it brings to society. Huang Xuetao said that in some cases involving criminal offenses, criminal defense lawyers will use this clause as a defense reason. "It is the most fearful and vigilant thing for the public to cause an accident (that is, a mentally handicapped person commits a criminal responsibility case) without having to bear the responsibility. Therefore, it is in favor of ‍‍ to control these 'people who are not responsible' in advance."

Wang Ling pointed out that in the entire disabled group, the unequal rights of the mentally handicapped due to stigma are the most prominent. "When everyone thinks of mental illness, TA will kill, set fire, and act violently. But in fact, just like this mother, it is more likely that they are victims of violence themselves. The injustice they receive is not treated by the media or society. Showing it head-on, that’s their biggest challenge.”

Yang Mouxia, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the official notification, should have been identified by the mainland's management system for patients with severe mental disorders, and received treatment, follow-up and rehabilitation. But that didn't happen.

The management system for the above-mentioned six kinds of mental disorders is not without strictness. According to the 2018 edition of the "Specifications for the Management and Treatment of Severe Mental Disorders", the comprehensive mental health management team should guide the patient care and support team to hold at least one regular meeting every quarter to fully understand the basic situation of the registered patients and families in the jurisdiction, and solve the problem of patient management. , treatment, recovery and problems in life.

The former group includes township (street) medical and health institutions, politics and law, health, public security, civil affairs, judicial administration, and disabled persons' federations. The latter includes grid personnel, mental illness prevention and treatment staff in primary medical and health institutions, police station police, civil affairs officers, full-time members of the disabled, family members, and volunteers.

In addition, the norm also provides specific implementation rules for patients with severe mental disorders in terms of detection, treatment, rehabilitation, and follow-up.

However, it didn't land.

From the perspective of the entire medical system, the current status of the management of people with severe mental disorders is not unrelated to the overall medical system and the distribution of mental health service resources in mainland China. A 2011 report stated that mental illness accounted for 20% of China's total disease burden, ranking first, yet government spending on mental health accounted for only 1% of total health spending.

Even if Jiangsu Province is considered to be an economically developed province, the report released by the Law Enforcement Inspection Team of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress shows that as of 2020, the number of registered patients with severe mental disorders in the province is 350,000, but the actual number of beds per 10,000 population is open in psychiatry. There are only 3.38 psychiatric practitioners (assistant) physicians per 100,000 population, which is significantly lower than the "National Mental Health Work Plan (2015-2020)" in the "Eastern Region Per 100,000 population psychiatric practitioners (assistant) physicians" ) The number of physicians shall not be less than 3.8".

Wang Hao believes that this is also the reason why Yang Mouxia could not be found and helped. "Although this framework exists, the overall implementation effect is not ideal. We are used to focusing on building the system, but the effect of the implementation level is very neglected."

Another reason is to ask the real purpose of the system. A social worker told reporters that the streets and towns now have statistical data on the disabled population with disability certificates in their jurisdictions. "But the civil affairs system is mainly responsible for the subsistence allowances and the extremely poor, and the mentally handicapped are all included in the object of stability maintenance." The difference is that after being listed as the object of stability maintenance, the focus is on "not committing crimes". Only when they are aggressive or endanger the safety of the community will they be focused.

Starting from the "unlocking project", the management ideas for patients with severe mental disorders have been to regard this group of people as risk factors. Wang Ling said that when she first saw patients with severe mental disorders treated by the "Unlocking Project" in a grass-roots mental health facility, "tears fell." ‍‍‍‍She said, "I don't think the people I saw were people, but like animals in cages in a zoo." Some of the people inside looked at Wang Ling while leaning on the railings, while others wandered on their own. Eyes blurred. "There are very few areas where they can move."

In Wang Ling's view, the value behind this is to only see a mentally disabled person as a patient in need of treatment, rather than a dignified person who still has diverse needs. "There needs to be a rational, humane, accessible, affordable care system for them in the countryside. But there's very little in the countryside."

Although he has been working in the field of advocacy for the rights of the mentally handicapped for more than ten years, Huang Xuetao said bluntly to the media: "I have never dared to touch the human rights issues in the mentally handicapped field in backward areas." She explained that in rural areas with limited resources, apart from In addition to policy advocacy and legal interpretation, resources are needed to provide practical services to the parties. "Those so-called rights protections are empty words when there is no supporting service support." Huang Xuetao said that although his organization has not been cancelled, because it is difficult to register and raise funds in China, there is no way to maintain the operation of the team. And other partner organizations have "fallen piece by piece".

For women with mental disabilities who are in rural areas, far from administrative resources and social resources, and even women in a wider range, their experiences have become a cry from afar.

Huang Xuetao said: "The protection of human rights is not the family's responsibility. Protecting a person's basic human rights needs is the responsibility of the entire society, and it is the only reason why the government needs to exist. It is to keep a vigil for the society. Wherever such rights violations occur, Public power should come out to protect human rights, instead of planning all human rights protection to be handled within the family. Disability should not be defined as a family burden, it is not an individual responsibility.”