A woman who survived an attack in which her husband doused her with sulfuric acid has made a social media video, drawing national attention to the case. After the attack, the husband was initially only detained for ten days and received a 400 yuan ($58) fine.

A female survivor of domestic violence has spoken out on social media about the devastating acid attack that has left her scarred for life (#被丈夫泼硫酸毁容女子发声#).

The incident happened in Kaihua Country in Quzhou, Zhejiang, on Jan. 14, 2023, when a 31-year-old female named Zhang argued with her husband, Xu Zhong, over their marriage.

During the dispute, Xu Zhong, a 29-year-old chemical engineer, attacked his wife by throwing concentred sulfate acid in her face. He already had prepared the bottle with concentrated sulfuric acid prior to the incident.

“I want you all to see my acid burns,” Zhang says in the video she recently posted on social media, sharing how she has already had three operations after the attack, which mainly burned the skin tissue around her eyes, her face, hands, and also scarring her two ears, leaving her partially deaf.

After the acid attack, Xu Zhong was detained for ten days and received a 400 yuan ($58) fine.

The topic went trending on Chinese social media platforms Weibo and Douyin on Saturday, Feb. 18. The topic “Husband Splashes Wife with Acid, Gets Detained for Ten Days” (#丈夫泼妻子硫酸被行拘10日#) received over 82 million views on Weibo at the time of writing.

Zhang prior to the attack and in her video after the attack.

Zhang had been a victim of domestic violence prior to the brutal attack. In June of 2022, Xu Zhong raised the topic of having a second child. When Zhang disagreed, the couple’s relation went bad and Xu Zhong started being violent toward his wife, after which she wanted to file for divorce.

Because Xu Zhong would not agree to a divorce, Zhang hired a lawyer and filed a lawsuit. She eventually was not able to come up with the legal fees and dropped the case in July of 2022.

In January of 2023, the separated couple met again to discuss the possibilities of divorce. It was at this time that Xu Zhong splashed Zhang with sulfate acid.

“If you want to commit a crime, just get married,” one top comment in one of the related threads on Weibo said.

The case has hit a nerve on Chinese social media, where other domestic violence incidents previously also went trending and sparked anger about the problem of domestic violence often being downplayed by Chinese local officials when women reach out for help.

Domestic abuse was officially criminalized with China’s first national law against domestic violence in 2016, but it is still a widespread problem, partly due to a general lack of public awareness and due to police officers often regarding it as a “private” family matter.

In light of the online attention surrounding the case, the local authorities in Kaihua released a statement on Saturday, in which they stated that the ten-day detention and fine were for Xu’s acts of violence intended to cause harm. The case is currently still being investigated and the local public security organs will hold the suspect legally responsible once they can assess the extent of Zhang’s injuries (#警方回应男子泼妻子硫酸仅拘10天#).

But on Weibo, many commenters do not understand the legal procedures and do not see why Xu is not already behind bars considering the severity of the attack.

“They only detained him for ten days? This can’t be real,” some write. “There is no excuse for him not being in jail now,” others say.

Similar discussions went trending on Chinese social media in 2020, after the death of Tibetan vlogger Lhamu, who died after her husband attacked her and set her on fire inside her own home. Lhamu’s death sparked widespread calls on authorities to do more to protect and legally empower victims of domestic abuse.

Besides the initial light sentence for Zhang’s husband, there is also online anger over the fact that Zhang was unsuccessful in filing for divorce in the summer of 2022.

Although many people think it should become easier for Chinese couples to file for divorce – even if the other party disagrees, – a law that was released in 2020 introduced a mandatory “cooling off period” of thirty days. The law is allegedly intended to make people think twice before finalizing their divorce, but it also triggered outrage as people felt the regulation makes victims of domestic violence even more vulnerable.

Some Chinese netizens say Zhang’s case brings back memories of the 1996 case of Yang Yuxia (杨玉霞), the most well-known acid attack case in China to date.

The Yang Yuxia case attracted nationwide attention in 1996.

Yang Yuxia was a 28-year-old primary school teacher in Shanghai who had an extramarital affair with the father of one of her students. After he ended the relationship, Yang attacked his wife and young daughter with sulfate acid, leaving them disfigured and leaving the girl (partially) blind. She was given the death penalty and faced execution by firing squad three months after the attack.

As for Zhang’s case, it is yet uncertain what the outcome of this particular domestic violence case will be, as it will depend on the findings of the ongoing investigation and the eventual ruling of the Kaihua court.

By Manya Koetse 

Follow @whatsonweibo
 

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On the first day after the Chinese Spring Festival holiday (Jan. 21-27), there are long lines at the Civil Affairs Bureau in several places across China.

In Jiangxi, one resident shared how couples were queuing up to file for divorce on the first day the local Bureau of Civil Affairs reopened its doors. The lines were allegedly so long that people had to wait outside. Another video showed similar scenes at a local bureau in Anhui province. A third video showed crowded scenes of people lining up to register a divorce in Henan.

Chinese media accounts such as Toutiao News (@头条新闻), Vista (@Vista看天下), and Phoenix News (@凤凰周刊) all posted about the long divorce lines on Jan. 29, with one post about the topic receiving 70,000 likes.

“I thought they were lining up to get married, then I watched the news and saw they were actually lining up to get divorced..,” one commenter wrote. Others wondered if the busy lines for the divorce registration office might have something to do with the Covid outbreak over the past weeks, with some couples finding out that their partner actually is not very sympathetic when they are sick (also read this article).

The Chinese media outlets posting about the divorce registration lines mentioned how the ones who suffer the most in a divorce are the children, but many commenters did not agree with this statement, arguing that children suffer the most when parents stay together for the sake of the children and then continue fighting.

The divorce trend after the Chinese Lunar New Year has also been discussed in Chinese media and on social media in previous years (“春节后离婚潮”).

In Western countries, it is a known fact that divorce rates increase after Christmas time; the Monday after Christmas break is also dubbed “Divorce Day.” Some sources claim this is often due to quarrels that occur during Christmas and the financial pressures that come with the festive season.

It is arguably not much different for the Chinese New Year, when incidents taking place during family gatherings could be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“The Spring Festival is like a big marriage minefield,” one commenter wrote: “When you return to your family home, it doesn’t just mean reuniting with your close relatives, there are also various tests of human relations and etiquette. A careless moment can cause conflicts between a married couple, leading to quarrels or even divorce. Is your marriage good or not? You will know during the Chinese New Year. After the New Year, there will be a wave of divorces.”

But the pandemic situation of the past years, in including the lockdowns, mental stress and financial difficulties, inescapably also play a role in the recent divorce wave.

In December of 2022, this Chinese blog article already predicted that more people would file for divorce after the Chinese New Year since the end of the holiday would coincide with the end of the Covid peak. In times of lockdown, and especially in times of sickness, couples easily get annoyed with each other and their love is put to the test.

Earlier this month, some Chinese media also reported that three years after the pandemic began, cities were already seeing a “divorce wave” (#疫情后一线城市离婚预约爆满#).

Some netizens comment that the ‘cool-off’ period that was introduced to allow couples a month’s time to think and revoke their divorce does not seem to have much effect.

Some people sympathize with those standing in line: “Celebrating the New Year can bring about a war in some families. The divorce season has started.”

By Manya Koetse 

Follow @whatsonweibo

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