China: a man sentenced to nine years in prison for kidnapping his wife

A Chinese was sentenced to nine years in prison on Friday April 7 for forcible confinement, the country's justice announced.

The man chained his wife around the neck last year.

The images of this mother in great psychological suffering, chained in a barn in the province of Jiangsu (East), had caused great emotion in China in January 2022 after their publication online and a wave of indignation.

The couple had eight children.

The husband in question had been arrested in the process along with several other people, accused of human trafficking.

Dong Zhimin was sentenced to six years and six months in prison for "

", the Intermediate People's Court of Xuzhou, a city about 100 km from Shanghai, said on Friday.

He also receives an additional three years for "

", or nine years in prison in total, during this trial at first instance.

human trafficking

Three other people tried in this case were also sentenced to terms ranging from eight to eleven years in prison.

Authorities say the woman was abducted from her village in Yunnan, some 2,000 km from where she was discovered.

It was then sold several times, including once in 1998, for 5,000 yuan (665 euros at the current price).

The authorities had initially denied that this case was linked to human trafficking, a fairly common phenomenon in the Chinese countryside where women to marry are relatively rare.

The one-child policy, imposed in China for almost 40 years until 2016, resulted in a shortage of women due to a traditional preference for male children.

This imbalance has given rise to a large number of abductions of young women forced into marriage in villages where men are in excess.