The temperature was 0oC, the floor earthen, and there in a dark recess of the brick hut, stood a middle-aged woman shivering in the freezing cold conditions. But what startled the vlogger, who happened to be walking by, was the chain attached to her neck: she was shackled to a wall, dishevelled and mumbling incoherently. A female slave in modern rural China.
The video of this poor woman went viral, with 1.90 billion views on Douyin. (officially her name was Wang, but the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) were caught-out for lying, so later they changed it to Xiaohuamei, perhaps it’s her real name? The Truth doesn’t have much currency in Communist China).
How to prevaricate and get away with it, well almost
Consistent with the propaganda of the MSM we’ve come to know and loathe. The way to promote your Leftist agenda is to ignore, and therefore not report on anything that could sully the Marxist cause. You see, not one official news channel in China covered this appalling story of female slavery.
(Hmm……. sounds familiar, just like our MSM, who don’t bother to report on the tens of thousands unwashed protesters, who have the gall to ask for their jobs back– I think they’re busy covering more important stories, like Harry and Megan’s tiff with the Queen).
Notwithstanding the scandal wouldn’t go away. Netizens (citizens of the internet) around the country rallied to support this poor woman and demand an investigation.
The truth finally comes out, well maybe
Firstly, the official story was that the hard working, longsuffering husband needed to chain his mentally ill wife, in order to stop her beating their children. Pull the other leg, it whistles. On interviewing her it became obvious that this timid and helpless woman was not capable of this crime, or any crime.
So, a second version of events was sought. This time the CCP admitted that Wang, now Xiaohuamei, had been sold as a female slave to her husband Dong. She came from a village near the China-Myanmar border some 1,800 miles from her place of captivity. Worse still was that she’d been gang raped by Dong’s brother and father, which resulted in eight children in total.
In order to recover face the CCP have charged Dong for illegal detention and other villagers for human trafficking. Sadly, Xiaohuamei is not an isolated case. Evidence suggests that although officially CCP bans female slave trafficking, nonetheless it’s very common in the rural areas of China, with a hint of CCP complicity.
CCP self inflicted wound
Here’s the thing, central planning (a hallmark of all Socialist regimes) never works. The CCP in 1980 set a limit on couples to one child per family, with endorsement of centuries of Chinese culture, most Chinese couples only want male over female children. So, female babies are aborted or sold into slavery when old enough, leaving 35 million men in China without wives. Hm…and then they wonder why there’s female sex trafficking?
Fortunately, this short-sighted, one child policy was abandoned in 2016.
Let the feminists arise
The majority of Feminists in the West are more concerned with their next coffee latte on the way to the board room, than the desperate plight of their sisters in China. A few have expressed concern.
Such as Chinese Feminist Lu Pin, from New York. She avers that Xiaohuamei’s case proves that ‘Patriarchal societies’ internalise the exploitation of women.
What an amazing insight, and such an attention-grabbing headline in the West, but last time I looked China was a thoroughly Communist country and as such consistent with Mao’s Little Red Book, had thrown off the shackles of Christian Patriarchy last century. Maybe she could pay a visit to China or stop reading Feminist Weekly, which is tediously preoccupied with ridiculing motherhood.
Christianity ennobles the status of women
While the high and lofty ideals of Marxism eradicate the God-ordained biological reality of male and female, and thereby apportion societal roles equally between men and women, nonetheless the reality is that hard-line Socialist countries continue to exploit women. Communist China is a case in point.
Be that as it may, the Bible tells me that both women and men bear the image of God and are therefore ontological equals.
So, God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;male and female he created them. (Genesis chapter 1, verse 27)
Here’s the thing, our equal standing before our creator proscribes any exploitation of women, or any mistreatment of them. They are equal to men, full stop. So, for those blokes reading this get over your superiority complex.
The Bible goes on to say "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians chapter 3, verse 28)
Here’s the thing as far as God is concerned, he both acknowledges both male and female, but at the same time sees us as one humanity expressed in a binary form, with different roles and yet with a commonly shared humanity.
Finally, Paul’s injunction for ‘Husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her’ (Ephesians chapter 5, verse 25) should sound an alarm, when we as men drift into an attitude of regarding the most important woman in our life as a utensil that exists for the singular purpose of servicing our selfish ambitions.
Rather, she is worthy of our respect and devotion.