The Chained Woman in China is an Eight-Child Mother

As China’s Winter Olympics presents a picture of peace and prosperity, a TikTok video revealed a woman chained around her neck, secured with a lock and affixed to the wall in a shack that opens up to the exterior. She wears a light sweater despite the January cold and looks haggard and her hair hangs lankly.

“This world doesn’t want me,” the woman can be heard saying.

Netizens has been calling for justice: Who really is she? Who and why chained her? Had she been abused or trafficked, like being sold as a bride under fraud or coercion? How had she managed to birth eight children under strict national birth policies that until 2016 had restricted families to only one child?