An indicator of child beating’s wide acceptance in China is that half of the 697 reported child abuse cases in the country from 2008 to 2013 involved the death of the tyke. According to the Beijing Children’s Legal Aid and Research Center, a lot of these cases were characterized by long-term abuse that were particularly extreme.
Among the extreme forms of abuse were pouring scalding water on children and putting out cigarettes on their skin, disclosed Tong Lihua, director of the center and a lawyer, reported Global Times. Tong is pushing for the Chinese society to agree that hurting children, even their own, is an illegal act.
However, because majority of adult Chinese were raised in a domestic environment where beating is normal, many are surprised when told that hitting their own child is a criminal offense. Among the instances when parents beat their kids are when they stole money, lied about their school tests or left their sight.
A Beijing woman in her 60s, Zhang, explained that in her generation, beating children is a way of showing parental love, while pampering them would harm the kids. It is a tradition passed down from one generation to another that persists this day.
In some instances, even as young adults, children still get beaten by the parents by slapping, hitting with a belt or stripping them naked.
Given that culture of beating many Chinese grew up with, it is not surprising that a 2014 survey by 19lou.com, a community website in Hangzhou, showed 84 percent of the respondents out of 310 parents recalled being beaten as a child.
The widespread practice made a parent quip that if China’s Law on the Protection of Juveniles were to be strictly implemented, majority of Chinese parents would be in jail.
China’s dailies never run out of stories of child abuse. The latest incident involves 36-year-old Han, a migrant worker who visited his daughter in Hanzhong, Shaanxi Province. Police said that when Han discovered that his daughter stayed out all night, he beat her to discipline the child, reported China.org.
Han beat his daughter on April 4 for two hours, but only stopped when the child appeared to be dying. He then rushed her to the hospital, but doctors declared the child dead on arrival. A lot of the child-abuse victims are left-behind children. Some of the abusers are teachers.