(Caution! Texts in red color might be disturbing)
LI
SU COULD BE SAVED
–
A Petition To Chinese Legislature
Regarding Family Child Abuse In China
This
is a petition letter to Chinese legislature with respect to family
child abuse crime in China. We urge government to take actions to
refine the existing child protection law, deprive the custodial
rights of parents who seriously harm their children, bring criminals
to justice. We appeal government
to put effort on establishing official organizations for protecting
children. We also urge Chinese government and society to raise public
awareness of the seriousness of Family child abuse in China, and the
responsibility of society towards children.
20
years ago, in Xining, Qinghai province
of China, a 5 year-old girl was tortured to death by her biological
mother. Her name was Li Su (苏丽).
During her short life, Li had been suffered all kinds of mental and
physical abuses, included verbal abuse, beating savagely and
starving. More horrendously, not only once, Li's mouth was sewn
together with needle and thread. One day when Li was 5 year-old, due
to tremendous hunger she begged for foods, but what her “mother”
did to her was feeding her with hot boiling cooking oil. After this
astonishing torture, the “mother” did not send her daughter to
hospital, instead, she continued physically abusing her for days,
until Li finally died of unimaginable suffering (1).
While
Zhiyun Yan (燕志云)
– Li's mother - certainly is not a only person in the world who is
capable of committing such crime, Li Su could be saved if the
society had a better child protection system. During all those
years Li Su's situation was well known to neighborhood, and once was
even reported in several newspapers, but she was nonetheless left
alone, lived in her “home” until her young life could not endure
anymore. Under such circumstance, Li Su was more a victim of society
than a victim of an individual criminal.
A
quick look at some recent cases. June 2013, in the city of Nan
Jing(南京）,
Jiangsu province of China, 2 girls,1 and
3 year-old, was left alone at home for over 100 days and starved
to death, due to the completely
incapability of mothering (2); July 2013 in Guizhou (贵州)
province of China, a man was arrested
for brutally torturing her 11 year-old daughter for 5 years
long，included
pouring boiling water to the head, sewing the mouth together, using
needle pricking fingers, etc.(3) .
In 2013, Shuicheng county (水城县)
of Guizhou province,
a 12 year-old girl “Xiaoyan”
(晓燕）,
after her body was burned literally all over with hot fire rod by her
parents – mostly her mother, escaped from “home”. Several days
later she ended up a local police department. After Xiaoyan's father
handing a “letter of repentance” to police, policemen sent
Xiaoyan back to her parents. Soon she escaped again due to her
parents' continuing physical tortures. Now Xiaoyan is staying
hospital and allegedly under good care. Her fate is unknown (4).
There are many more similar cases from time to time. All
these cases
reveal one fact: children in China have no protection except their
families, and if the families happen to be problematic or violent,
these children have absolutely no helps from else where.
Child
abuse, by all means is the worst type of human crimes, yet it is
often neglected by society. The seriousness of child abuse, first
lies in the complete innocence and vulnerability of children. Every
single child in this world is innocent, and every one of them is
completely defenseless before adults' attack. And it is precisely
because of this reason, it is the duty of the society to protect
children; secondly, the seriousness of child abuse also lies in
victims' long term suffering. Physical wounds of child abuse victims
may be healed in short period of time, but mental wounds would last
for long term. Some of victims would even suffer mental illness for
their entire lives; thirdly, because victims of child abuse usually
carry tremendous emotional traumas, very often, they can be harmful
to themselves, or to others, thus they can be potential danger of
society. Due to all this reasons, any civilized societies should have
elaborate legal systems to supervise all families with young
children, to make sure that they are safe.
Child
abuse in China has been a historical problem, yet it never been
confronted by society. Corporal punishment to children is perfectly
acceptable based on Chinese tradition, so millions of child abuse
crimes have been simply “invisible” to public. Further more, as
the world largest population, even if the victims of serious child
abuse in China are minority, it is still an incredibly large number.
Under such circumstance, if there are no actions from Chinese
government, the condition for Chinese children would only get worse
than what it is.
Even though
before Li Su died China had already established child-protect law,,
but the sentences to criminals of family child abuse have been
extremely mild. Zhiyun Yan, who tortured Li Su for years and finally
took her life, was only sentenced 7 years in prison. Shihai
Yang (杨世海),
the man who torture his daughter for 5 years long, was only sentenced
for 1 year and 6 months in jail. We see no sign of justice at
all in these verdicts. The real
obstacle for the current law to protect children in China is the
Chinese ancient tradition: children are parents' property.
Because of this obstinate ideology, the law doesn't stand firmly
when it related to parents' custodial right, and the implement on
this regard is completely lame. By far, among all child abuse cases
in China, no matter how serious they were, not a single parent's
custodial right has been deprived. This fact, doubtlessly caused
children endure much more unnecessary suffering. It
is the objective of this petition to urge Chinese legislature to
refine the existing child protect law, to create an implementable
legal methods, bring those parents who commit serious crime to
justice, regardless the their relationships to victims.
A
functional Child-protect system would not stop at punishing
criminals, more importantly, it aims to “protect” children. So
the
ultimate goal of this petition letter is to appeal Chinese government
and society to put effort on providing a “home” to those children
who suffer violence from their parents.
We suggest that China government adopts some existing child-protect
systems from other countries, such as founding organizations of
children protection, setting up children protective hotlines, etc.
Last
but not least, in addition to law enforcement and organization of
child protection, we also urge
government to use all possible mediums, such as news media and
educational system, to raise the public awareness of family child
abuse situation in China, to advocate the responsibility of society
in terms of protecting children. The cultural tradition of
China has been focused on elders for thousands years, many Chinese
people are still unfamiliar with the concept of child-protection. We
believe only when people understand the importance of child
protection, could they cooperate with the law, help the legal system
to function as it means to, thus the situation of children can be
more effectively improved.
A
just and healthy society should understand the vulnerability of
children and protect them. Children, on the one hand is the most
vulnerable group of society, on the other hand they are the hope of
the future. Healthy children will bring society a brighter tomorrow.
For such reasons, we strongly urge the Chinese legislature to put
this issue as an immediate agenda, take actions to change the
situation, bring Chinese children a safe and healthy environment.
REMEMBER
LI SU! SAVE THE CHILDREN!
(The
End)
Notes:
1,
People's Public Safety, January 18th, 1991.
(《人民公共安全专家报》1991年1月18日，第二版
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