A horror confronted
China has millions of sexually abused children. It is beginning to acknowledge their suffering
HUANG YANLAI was 74 when he first raped 11-year-old Xiao Yu. He threatened her with a bamboo-harvesting knife while she was out gathering snails in the fields for her grandmother in Nan village, Guangxi province, in China’s south-west. Over the following two years, Xiao Yu (a nickname meaning Light Rain) was raped more than 50 times, her hands tied and a cloth stuffed in her mouth. She was a left-behind child, entrusted to relatives while her parents worked in distant cities. Her father returned home once a year. Told that his daughter was in trouble, he asked her what was wrong but she was too frightened to tell him. So he beat her up.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “A horror confronted”
China August 27th 2016
From the August 27th 2016 edition
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