How Could You? Hall of Shame-China- Li Zhengqin UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Nanjing, China, Adoptive parents are being investigated for abuse of their 9-year-old adoptive son.

“Pictures of a nine-year-old boy suspected of being abused by his foster parents have gone viral online in China after they were uploaded by an Internet user on Sina Weibo on Friday.

The images, posted by “chaotingbanrixian” showed the young boy covered in scars and bloodstains.

“One of the boy’s teacher discovered that the boy received more and more injures recently and preferred to stay alone, ” chaotingbanrixian wrote on the Twitter-like microblog.

The user also wrote that abuse was first suspected of being abused last year, but the school thought it was an accident so it didn’t get publicized.

The boy told the teacher that his parents were beating him with water pipes and branches, burning him with water vapor, and jabbing him with nibs.

The microblog post received wide attention online and people are calling for severe punishment for the parents.

According to the Nanjing Morning Post, the boy was legally adopted in Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu province when he was six and the parents are highly educated, one is a journalist and the other a lawyer.

The police are now investigating the allegations.”

Boy suspected of being abused by foster parents[ECNS 4/5/15 ]

“A series of images showing a nine-year-old boy suspected of being abused by his foster parents have gone viral after they were uploaded by a Weibo user on Friday evening.

The Weibo user named chaotingbanrixian wrote: “At the age of six, the boy was legally adopted by his foster parents in Nanjing. The abusive conduct was found out by the boy’s teachers last year, but at the time the teachers thought it might have been an accident, so it didn’t get publicized.”

Recently one of the boy’s teachers discovered a fresh set of scars all over his body and noticed that he is scared of being around crowds of people. The school have tried to get to the bottom of the abuse but to no avail, so are now appealing for netizens to help.

Local media have reported, without naming any sources, that the boy’s parents have been beating him with water pipes and branches, burning his feet with water vapor and jabbing his face with pens.

According to the Nanjing Morning Post, the foster parents are very well-educated. One is a journalist and the other is a lawyer. Police are currently carrying out an investigation.

Xinhua reports that the child’s mother was taken into custody in the early hours of this morning. The boy has temporarily been returned to his biological parents while an investigation is carried out.”

9-year-old Nanjing boy physically abused by adoptive parents[Shanghaist 4/5/15 by Lucy Lu and Dominic Jackson]

“A panel of experts has voiced divided views on the arrest of an adoptive mother who allegedly abused her 9-year-old foster son.

 

During a hearing in East China’s Nanjing on Friday, the Pukou district people’s procuratorate listened to 18 people on whether to arrest the woman, surnamed Li.

She was detained after photos of suspected lash marks on the child’s back, arms and legs went viral online in March. Some advised the procuratorate to be careful when handling domestic violence and put the boy’s interests first, while others said she should be treated severely.

The public panel consists of people ranging from political consultants to legal experts, psychologists to educators.

The procuratorate said it would consider the panel’s opinions when deciding whether to issue an arrest for the woman, who has been under police detention for 10 days for intentional injury.

The online photos triggered an outcry to punish Li. A medical appraisal reported the boy suffered injuries on 10 percent of his body.

Li’s lawyer read her apology letter at the hearing, in which the mother said she was in hysterics when she beat the boy with a wooden stick.

“I would double my love to take care of the boy in the future,” she said in the letter.

Li is the cousin of the boy’s natural mother. The adoption was agreed to by both families. But the procuratorate said the adoption did not go through formal procedures.

The boy told the hearing he would still like to live with the adoptive mother.

A child abuse offense refers to family members frequently mistreating a child. The crime can be punished with up to two years in prison.

Of the 697 child abuse cases exposed by the media from 2008 to 2013, about 75 percent were committed by biological parents, the Beijing Youth Legal Assistance Research Center said.”

Opinion divided on ‘child abuse’ arrest[China Daily 4/18/15 ]

“A foster mom has been arrested for “disciplining” the child in her care with a back scratcher and other items that included branches, water pipes, and steam.

The report comes by way of the Daily Mirror, which included a series of graphic photos. We’ve only produced two of them here to give you a sense of the damage (including the one above), but you can see the rest at this link.

Just going by the photographic evidence, it’s tough to see this as anything but child abuse, and that’s what led authorities in eastern China to arrest the woman and charge her with “willful and malicious injury,” reports the Nanjing Morning Post.

While in the woman’s care, the 9-year-old boy is said to have been whipped and lashed with a back scratcher and ropes for not finishing the extra work the woman gave him.

She also allegedly knocked the boy to the ground and began kicking him. At one point, she reportedly burned him with water vapor, beat him with a water pipe, and “jabbed him with nibs,” the Daily Mirror added.

The woman, who is being called a foster mom though she legally adopted the child when he was 6, has lost access to the boy for the time being.

He’s been placed back in the care of his biological parents though that could change if she is found innocent or pleas down to lesser charges.

(With this being China, it’s hard to know for sure how the justice and child welfare systems will handle it. If we have any readers familiar to the area who can shed some light, please do.)

One of the most disturbing pictures includes the one that shows disturbing scars to the boy’s upper torso.

For many commenters, the first photo alone is bad enough, but the second looks like something out of Passion of the Christ.

Facebook commenters were quick to voice their outrage at the woman, whose name has been withheld to protect the identity of the child.

“I cannot believe the things people do to children,” said Nicole LeAnn Stout. “There is this shop in Spokane, Washington, where you can pay to go break crap. I think we should do that to offenders of children, open a shop where people can just beat the snot out of them for a fee. Of course the fee should go to the victim.”

“BEAT THAT B**CH JUST LIKE SHE DID THAT YOUNG BOY AND IF YOU CANT DO IT THEN I WILL BE MORE THAN WILLING,” wrote Facebooker Thomas Baldwin.

“I certainly hope there is a special place in hell for people like this,” added Paula Maxey Ayres. “And that she be given the same punishment for the rest of her life!”

What do you think about the injuries this foster mom inflicted on the child? Is prison too much to ask?”

Foster Mom Used Back Scratcher, Ropes, To Punish Child [Inquistr 4/19/15]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

 

Update: “Chinese authorities have applied to arrest a woman in connection with a child abuse case in east China’s Nanjing city.

The woman named Li Zhengqin was suspected of severely beating her adopted son surnamed Shi. The case has aroused great outrage among Chinese internet users.

The foster mother is facing the charge of intentional injury, according to Nanjing police via their Weibo account.

It is reported that the boy’s teacher alerted police when the 9-year-old showed up to school with severe bruises on his body.

Pictures circulated on the internet show bruises on the child’s back, legs, arms, belly and feet.

The police said the case is still under investigation.

Last month, a six-year-old girl in Yiwu City, east China’s Zhejiang Province, was allegedly beaten to death by her mother during a “family dispute”, triggering calls for better protective measures for minors.

Of the 697 child abuse cases exposed by the media from 2008 to 2013, 74.75 percent were committed by parents, the Beijing Youth Legal Assistance Research Center revealed.”

Foster Mother Faces Intentional Injury Charge in Child Abuse[CRI ENglish 4/13/15 by Yangyang]

Update 2: “A Chinese mother claims she is innocent after being sentenced to a six-month imprisonment for brutally whipping her son with a skipping rope.

Li Zhengqin, 48, stood trial this week in Nanjing, eastern China, and admitted to beating her son whom she had adopted for three years.

However, the former journalist insisted she had not violated any law because she was merely trying to teach the child a lesson, reported People’s Daily Online. Her nine-year-old son suffered from more than 150 wounds on his body in April as a result of lying about his academic grading.

Li, who used to work as a journalist in China’s Jiangsu province, was arrested on April 12 after photographs of her son’s horrific wounds were posted online by his school teachers at the end of March.

The school teachers revealed they had noticed cuts and scars on the child six months prior to the incident.

However, it was the severe whip marks that finally prompted them to expose the mother’s behaviour.

The photos of the boy’s injuries had sparked outrage on Chinese social media.

This is partially because Li is appears to be well-educated and comes from a middle-class background. Her husband is reported to be an established lawyer in Nanjing.

The child, only identified by his nickname Xiaohu, was whipped first with a scratching rake then a skipping rope because, according to the mother, he lied about his academic grading and cheated in a school exam.

Prosecutors said Xiaohu’s wounds, which covered an astonishingly 10 per cent of his body, proved that Li Zhengqin had been beating her son since June 2014.

However, forensic experts hired by the defendant’s lawyer said that the injuries were not serious since the child was able to go to school.

The trial for the case started on September 28 in Nanjing Pukou Court and went on for two days.

Li claimed that she was merely trying to give her son a lesson for lying and she punished him with ‘a good intention’.

However, she also lost control in the court several times during which she yelled and cried.

‘I can’t beat him that heavily. He is my son and I love him!’ Li said as the judge sentenced her a six-month detention for ‘intentionally causing bodily harm’.

She reportedly said during the trail: ‘I thought to myself, to hit him a few times will deter his bad habit. I did not even thought of hurting him.’

It was reported that she was trying to commit suicide by hitting her head against the walls. At least half a dozen of court guards had to manhandle her to calm her down.

Li is making an appeal in hope of proving her innocence.

It was reported that the child’s biological mother, who’s only identified by her surname Zhang, was Li Zhengqin’s cousin.

Zhang wanted her child to live in a big city in order to get a better upbringing, so she gave Xiaohu to Li, who lives Nanjing.

According to Li, Xiaohu had developed a habit of lying shortly after she and her husband took him in. She had been using different methods to teach him but her efforts were in vain.

She said she had no choice but to resort to physical punishment in hope of teaching the child a lesson.

After Li Zhengqin was arrested, Xiaohu moved back to live with his biological parents.

The child told reporters from Jinghua Online: ‘I lied and my mother did not want me to do that.

‘I don’t hate her. She was doing all that for my own good.’

He added that he wanted to go back to live with Li as soon as possible.

Additionally, Zhang, the little boy’s biological mother, had urged the authorities to drop all criminal charges against her cousin and had written a pleading letter for the defendant.

Zhang hoped that Xiaohu could go back to live with Li in Nanjing so his life could return to normal.”

Chinese mother who admits to whipping her adopted son with a skipping rope insists she is innocent because she had ‘a good intention’[Daily Mail 10/2/15 by Olivia Chan]

Update 3:”A so-called tiger mother in China has been jailed for six months after she whipped her adopted son with a skipping rope because he would not finish his homework.

The woman, named only as Li in local media in Nanjing in east China’s Jiagsu Province, left the nine-year-old with shocking scars and lash marks all over his arms, back and legs.

During her trial, judges heard how she was arrested when pictures of the shocking injuries appeared online.

Li – described as being in her 50s – admitted thrashing the boy, who is also her nephew, with a skipping rope and back scratcher.

She told the court she had whipped him because ‘he didn’t finish his homework and told lies.’

She added: ‘I’m not a bad mother. I just don’t want him to tell lies.’

The boy had been adopted by Li from his parents in a remote Anhui province village so he could get a better education in the city.

Court officials have sent him back to his family while his adoptive mother serves her six-month jail sentence.

The case is one of the first recorded of an adult being charged with assaulting a child, which has been accepted as normal in China for generations.

Li’s conviction has started a call for tougher sentences – with commentators saying she should have been jailed for six years.

The court ruling said: ‘No matter how much she cares and loves her son, she must face the consequences of her actions.’

The phrase Tiger Mum was coined in Asia and is used to describe a demanding and strict mother who pushes her children to high levels of achievement.”
When tiger mums go bad! Chinese mother who whipped her adopted son with a skipping rope because he wouldn’t finish his homework is jailed for six months

 [Daily Mail 11/23/15 by Jennifer Newton]

Update 4: “A local court just upheld a Chinese woman’s six-month prison term after she flogged her foster son over unfinished homework.

The case sparked outrage in April after photos of the boy, known only by his surname Shi, with raw red welts across his back, were shared widely on social media

Nanjing police eventually detained his foster mother, Li Zhengqin, who confessed to beating the nine-year-old boy with a backscratcher and skipping rope for allegedly not doing his homework and telling lies.

The boy is the third child of a rural family in the Anhi province. To hopefully give him a better education in the city, the boy was taken in by Li, his aunt.

Following a medical report declaring that the boy had suffered minor injuries, Li  was handed a prison term in September. However, the boy’s biological parents — and even the boy himself — have pleaded mercy for Li, stating that she loved the boy and had only taken the wrong approach in disciplining him.

“I’m not a bad mother. I was just trying to discipline my child,” Li said at the hearing.

The boy is currently under the custody of his biological parents. His family, however, continues to worry about the boy’s future, given the poor conditions in their rural home.”

Chinese mother jailed for beating foster son over unfinished homework [New Target 1/13/16 ]