“I Was a 12-Year-Old Bride”: The Plight of Child Brides in China

Panyan Ma is a 29-year-old Chinese woman, a mother of a 15-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy. Her other identity is a child bride of a farmer who is 17 years older than her. She was pushed into the marriage with the man, Xueshen Chen, when she was 12. Although in mainland China, the legal marriage age of females is 20.

Panyan Ma and her two sisters were born in a small village of Wushan, a rural county in Southwest China. In 1997, their mother, who was diagnosed as suffering with schizophrenia, killed their father when she was beaten by the man. Being immune from legal punishment because of her mental illness, the mother then took her daughters to Zhengsong Ma, the elder brother of her husband and left them there. After that, Zhengsong Ma became the guardian of the orphaned sisters.

Claiming that he was too poor to raise the sisters up, uncle Zhengsong Ma forced them to marry one by one, and got money from the bridegrooms’ families as compensation. This resulted in the three sisters all becoming brides before 16.

An old tradition remains vigorous

The Chinese tradition of child brides was first recorded in the Zhou Dynasty (B.C.1046-B.C.771). In the past, rich families bought little girls from poor families, bringing them up and asking them to do housework, which including taking care of their future husbands, sons of rich families.

After the People’s republic of China was built, the Chinese government enacted the new marriage law, in which the third article of the second chapter expressly bans child brides.

However, this custom never disappeared.

In 2011, while doing research for The report of child-bride issues in Putian, Fujian province of China, Jing Zhang, a researcher of a Chinese NGO called Woman’s Rights

in China found a “Child-bride village”, in which a quarter of the population were child brides.

According to Jing Zhang’s report, in a local primary school,14 out of the 33 girls in sixth grade（aged between13 and 15）and 7 out of 31 fifth-grade girls had become child brides.

In modern China, the husbands of these underage brides are poor men living in poverty-stricken areas instead of boys in rich families.

Under the duple influence of the one-child policy and traditional preference of boys, it has become common that people choose to abort female fetuses. As the result, the

Chinese society is facing a serious gender imbalance. In accordance with the 2015 Nationwide population census published by the National Bureau of Statistic of China, there were 33 million more males than females in mainland China.

Consequently, the degree of the difficulty for Chinese men to find their life partners is increasing, and so does the bride price (the groom’s family gives money to the bride’s) required by girl’s family. In 2016, the National Bureau of Statistic of China claimed the per capital disposable income of population in less developed areas was 7653 Yuan (1108 US Dollars), but the average level of bride price was generally higher than 10000 Yuan (1450 US Dollars). Many poor men who cannot afford the expense of normal marriage end up choosing child brides as the solution.

Girls, like Panyan Ma, are forced to marry these men by their families, and more child brides are kidnapped and sold as commodities by human traffickers. Chinese child

brides do exist, but it is very hard to find information about this group.

The Chinese government has never published any official statistic data about child brides, and in the child marriage database of UNICEF, there is not any information on this agenda in China either.

In Chinese mainstream media’s databases, there are articles talking about Indian Child brides, while no news about the suffering of domestic child brides, except Panyan Ma’s case. She is the only one who is known publicly for fighting for herself amongst Chinese child brides.

Local acceptance

In "hot spot" areas for child brides, people have gotten used to this phenomenon. They prefer to judge this behavior based on the traditional values rather than laws. Understanding that bachelors need wives and believing females’ will is not as important as males’, they choose to accept it and persuade sufferers to accept it.

The marriage of Panyan Ma was agreed upon by her relatives. Her aunt’s husband was the matchmaker, with her uncles and other relatives making the final decision and set all things up regardless of the opposition from the orphaned girl.

Panyan Ma still remembers the scene of her wedding. She begged people surrounding her, crying to them that she was too young to marry, but no one helped her. Finally, the crying girl was sent to the bridegroom’s house, and the weeding happened as scheduled. Many villages attended the ceremony, among whom there were some village officials, but none of them objected to the marriage.

“Child brides are very common here, and it is not a big deal in the opinions of the poorly educated population, since they lack awareness of modern law. You can easily find more than one thousand similar cases.” A media professional in Panyan Ma’s hometown was quoted as saying by the The Beijing News.

Huashan Shi, who is famous for fighting against human traffickers in China, claimed it even happened that they got the opposition from an entire village when they tried to rescue a child bride.

This kind of environment is like a sponge, every time when child brides try to speak up, it becomes the first shield absorbing their voices immediately.

“They are not on my side”

During the “marriage” with Xuesheng Chen, Panyan Ma has tried to escape many times, but every time she ended up being brought back and then beaten violently. Until 2012, after her second child was brought to the world, she finally got the chance to leave and then got a job in Guangdong Province. She guessed the reason that Xuesheng Chen’s

family did not look for her that time was because she had given him two children, which means her role as a bearer of offspring for this family was done.

After the new life started, the young girl fell in love with a young guy soon, and they decided to get married in 2011. By this exact time, she found her marriage with

Xuesheng Chen had been registered legally without her knowledge three years ago. She was confused, since the Marriage Law of China stipulates that both the man and woman who apply for marriage shall go to the marriage registration authority in person to get registered.

Soon after, Xuesheng Chen admitted that he managed to get the marriage registration by bribing a local official, and he told Panyan Ma: “I can prevent you from divorcing me in the same way.”

In 2015, encouraged by a social worker, Panyan Ma started to take the matters to court. She filed for divorce to the court, while Chen said he would sign only if Panyan Ma

paid him 100000 yuan (14500 US dollars) as child-support payments, which was far beyond her economic ability.

At the same time, Panyan reported the police that Xuesheng Chen forced her for having sex before she was 14. According to the provisions of Article 139 of the Chinese

Criminal Law, having sex with girls under the age of 14 is supposed be punished as rape, no matter what the conditions are. However, the case was not placed on file because of the lack of evidence, and it had been more than 10 years since it happened. 10 years are the Chinese time limit of legal criminal prosecution.

“They (the government and the law system) are not on my side” Panyan Ma says.

These difficulties Panyan Ma met are typical problems for child brides when they try to demand justice. As children, they did not have the abilities or awareness to use the legal tools at the beginning. When they finally got the chances to ask the law for help, the time limit of administrative lawsuit becomes the obstacle. However, during the period before the time limit runs out, people, even police, have the tendency to identify the child-bride issues as family disputes, and do not acknowledge the importance of protecting the legal rights of child brides.

Guoqing Zhang, a lawyer, argues for them. In his opinion, Panyan Ma was underage and controlled by the Chen’s family when her rights were violated, so she was not able to conduct her litigious right. He also advises this period should be subtracted when the court counts the limitation of actions.

“I did report to the police in 2001 before the statute of limitations had run out,” Panya Ma recalled. At that time, the local police sent her for a medical examination, the result of which corroborated her claims. “But the police said the case was a domestic issue because my uncle told him I had married Xuesheng Chen, and then he refused to take any actions.” Panyan Ma’s words have eventually been proven by an official report.

In many child-bride cases, local governments do not live up to the responsibilities they are supposed to take. In The report of child-bride issues in Putian, Fujian province of China, the researcher found the officials of the “child-bride village” did know the widespread phenomenon, but they chose to turn a blind eye to it. One of them asked the researcher: “can you help the bachelors to find wives if you insist to ban them from buying child brides?”

Like the official who was bribed by Xuesheng Chen when he registered the marriage, some officials have found a way to turn the child-bride issues into a good way for themselves to get economic benefits. With the connivance of local governments, it is easier for people to start child marriages, while harder for victims to end it.

Don’t speak out

Panyan Ma decided to turn to the society for help. She started an account on Sina Weibo, a Chinese website which is similar to Twitter. Her username is Wushan Liuyuexue (Snow in June of Wushan). Snow of June is a kind of supernatural phenomena, the symbol of giant grievances. It comes from an old Chinese story about young woman called Dou’e, who was a child bride suffering from tragic fortunes.

Panyan Ma’s story caught the public’s eye. Under the growing public pressure, the county government started to launch an investigation into this case. Now Xuesheng Chen has signed the divorce agreement after the court’s mediation, withdrawing the request for child support.

The spokesman of the government expressed the sympathy to Panyan Ma and then claimed medical experts speculated the time of Ma’s first pregnancy was between

January to March 2012, right around the time when Ma turned to 14, so there was not enough proof to convict Xuesheng Chen of rape.

Panyan Ma was not satisfied with this answer. She insisted to continue to appeal until those people who destroyed her life get punished by law. Her behavior is condemned

by her fellow villagers. “When I go out, everyone on the street knows me but avoids me”. Panyan Ma posted this on her Weibo several days ago.

In a widespread interview video related to this case, one neighbor of Xueshen Chen said, “on that occasion, they (Panyan Ma and her sisters) were too poor. The most

important thing for them was finding a way to save life, so I would say Xuesheng Chen helped her.”

An old lady once showed her sympathy to Panyan Ma at the beginning of the marriage, but now the lady does not understand her either. In the same video, when Panyan Ma

and her little sister went back to her hometown, this lady tried to persuade them to give up the lawsuit.

There is a story of another Chinese child bride which can be compared with this. A girl called Shaomin Hao was kidnapped and sold at 18, as the wife to an old man living

deep in the mountains. She was abused a lot by her husband, however, after failing to run away, she decided to give up resistance, staying in the poor village and then becoming a teacher there. In 2015, she was set as a moral model by the local government and her story was made into a movie.

Traditional Chinese female culture has a concept called "The three obediences and four virtues", which is the core of the moral system. This concept says that a woman is supposed to give implicit obedience to her father, elder brother and husband.

In modern China, feminist thoughts have been becoming more and more popular, but in rural areas where child-bride cases happen frequently, people are still deeply influenced by these old values. They believe the duty of females is to serve and to be delicate, therefore they regard girls’ fighting for themselves like Panyan Ma’s, as immoral, while respecting the choice of Haomin Shao.

Beside the hate comments from people, Panyan Ma claimed she also got harassed by the local government from time to time. “The police asked me to delete my post on Weibo, and several village officials are monitoring me. I am under house arrest here. Please help me!!!” On March 3, 2017, a post appeared on her Weibo and was then deleted within one day.

The restrictions on freedom of expression is very normal for many petitioners in China. The Chinese government emphasizes the importance of harmony in society, but those debates caused by child-bride issues are identified as running counter to that. Under the government’s control on speech, the voices of child brides get lower and even disappear.

A movie comes to life

In 2007, a Chinese movie called Blind Mountain was banned in mainland China. It tells a tragedy of a child bride who could not make any changes despite her endlessly

fighting. In the end, the desperate girl killed her husband.

Before filming this movie, the director, Yang Li, did a lot of research on Chinese child-bride issues, and he was impressed by the coldness of people and local governments on the victims. When he was asked why he called this movie Blind Mountain, he answered

“I like the word ‘blind’, it means the eyes are dead. Our eyes are killed by ourselves.” Chinese child brides are struggling. It is society and the government system who actively choose to turn a blind eye to their suffering, which makes this group invisible to the world.

“My story is exactly the movie comes to the life”, Panyan Ma says. When I ask how the progress of her case is, she answers: “No updates. I’m still waiting”.