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Q: What are the Chinese laws regarding domestic abuse?
What happens if some guy decides to give his wife and kid a hiding and someone calls the cops? Can they bust the guy or is it treated differently to regular violent crime? I'm only asking because my wife and kid have been 'really' getting on my nerves lately and, you know, I don't want to get myself in any unnecessary trouble with the law. Kidding. Serious question.
Have you seen the story of the Chinese guy that beat his 'American' Wife? He is running some English school called 'Crazy English' Go figure! Yeah just look at that story and you'll find out! Probably the same punishment no custody of kids and you'd have to fork up about 30,000 kuai per month or year not sure which one it is. It's pretty serious!
Traveler:
That's an isolated case, one among millions, and hardly representative of the general population.
Scandinavian:
@Traveler. Although that is probably the case, if you read about the Crazy English case, many of those stories do ponder if this will help open the discussion on this problem.
I do think the Crazy English case only made it to the media because of the fact that it is a foreign woman and a rich guy. mArtiAn, I believe, is neither a foreign woman nor a rich Chinese guy.
crimochina:
you really have no concept of "context". chinese women are not so lucky. first , she was american. second, she documented the abuse online. and that case was being watched by the international media. the judge had no choice but to follow the law.
typically, abuse against women is ignored by the police and the courts. the laws on the books are pretty good, but they are not enforced.
mArtiAn:
Scan, you're absolutely correct, I am neither a foreign woman, nor a rich Chinese man; I am in fact a poor foreign man. And Crimo, I get the impression you are also correct; abuse against women 'does' seem to be ignored and treated more simply as a private, 'domestic' issue. My belief is that the nature of a patriarchal society, such as this, supports a certain psychological conditioning that almost 'excuses' such behaviour, as (in the eyes of such a society) those victims of the abuse are not equal in nature to that of the abuser.
i have seen to many cases of hitting a woman or a child in public here and i fear the numbers at home are far worse, that being said, women will have the economic power and demographics to make this problem a living hell for the men in the coming years.
Well.. There is a Chinese couple that lives in the apartment unit across from me..
Considering how often the wife and husband fight, I'd definitely say there are no laws regarding domestic abuse. The man is always screaming at his wife. The few times that I've heard the wife yell back, there is a lot of loud bangs and crashes so I just know she's getting the crap kicked out of her.
Considering this has gone on for months, I really don't think it's illegal.
There is another very young married woman, well dressed and definitely not a prostitute... Barely 18 years old and I sometimes see her sleeping by the heater at the 24hour ATM. I'm pretty sure she lives in the apartment complex, I don't know what's her story but if she's married and spending some nights sleeping next to an ATM, I think she's being abused by her husband or her husband's family.
My girlfriend's mother hasn't lived with her husband in many many years.. She ran away from her husband and became a monk/works at a temple, but because of the crooked legal system in China, the husband is able to prevent his wife from divorcing him.. He does this by "holding" her ID card. She cannot get a new ID card without returning to her home town. My girlfriend's father keeps sending my girlfriend text messages saying that if his wife ever comes back to the hometown and tried to divorce him or take back her ID card, he's going to murder her. So uhm... Yeah, I'd say that's domestic abuse. Worse than that, without the ID card we can't get my girlfriend's mother a passport so she can go to Hong Kong with us.. Major bummer because I plan on taking my girlfriend and moving to Hong Kong in the next month or two. Also my girlfriend wanted to take her mother to see the giant buddha in Hong Kong.
Amonk:
What? That's absurd! On the personal level, of course- but why can't the government void the old one and issue a new ID card for her? Or why can't the local police accompany her to get the ID card? That's just so disgusting.
Sidicas:
Apparently the Chinese ID card is critical to proving your identify and only your "hometown" can be allowed to issue it. I guess it's similar to a "birth certificate" in the USA where they keep your official birth certificate in the local records of your home town and you use it to apply for a Passport or whatever else.
If you're a Chinese without a Chinese ID card, it seems you're pretty screwed. You can still work at a Buddhist temple though.
My girlfriend's father thinks he's been betrayed/backstabbed/etc/etc because his wife ran away and is hiding.
@Sidicas
You're saying: "I think she's being abused by her husband or her husband's family."
What do you mean? Is this possible and a common issue in China?
On the other hand, I hope your girlfriend can make it through her father's house and find her mother ID and take her with you in HK. Would your girlfriend stand the fact that her mother is in such miserable situation while she lives away from her? I am pretty sure she won't be happy unless she knows she's safe and better conditions. Maybe where she is at the temple she is safe but I assume that it is so as long as the husband doesn't know of her whereabouts. Unfortunately the madness of a man like him cannot be avoided but running away from him as much as possible.
Well, it's just a thought.
PS. Sorry, that was supposed to be a comment not an answer.
Sidicas:
@Sidicas
What do you mean? Is this possible and a common issue in China?
Apparently it's possible and I highly doubt it's common.. A big part of the problem is that the hometown is in one of the really poor parts of China.. Which means they're far more likely to side with the husband rather than the wife that ran away / abandoned her husband. In any case, the husband doesn't want a divorce but the wife does and so I don't think anything can happen unless an agreement can be made and it's been years.. Maybe if my girlfriend's mom met a new man and wanted to get married again, something could happen. However it looks like she's quite happy just living and working in a temple. Right now it seems the situation is just stuck the way it is..
Maybe it's just because it's been a few years, but I don't think my girlfriend's mom thinks she's in a miserable situation. She seems reasonably happy other than the fact that she doesn't have a house. So I don't think my girlfriend is unhappy over it. Though my girlfriend wants to buy her mother her own house so she works hard to make money for that.
Yes, domestic violence is a real problem, albeit officially illegal. However no authority has done anything about it where I live. I have neighbors, a couple who fight a lot. The man has a real temper and often beats his wife. One recent late evening it was so bad [from what I could hear... the woman begging for mercy], I called police. They did not go to my neighbors first, but to me, advising me that 'such a thing was a personal and family matter and I should keep out of it. Then they went to my neighbors and asked them not to be noisy and that I had complained. Next day the neighbor got into my face about minding my own business. LOL.
Chinese law, according to Chinese families and Chinese tradition, is that nobody is allowed to reveal when this is happening, as it will make the Chinese people lose face. Women have it shit here.
Women are expected to lay down and take a beating, unless it gets national attention. Otherwise, everything continues as it has for thousands of years in Chinese history: with women at the bottom of the ladders.
A lot of my friends are afraid to get married because of the way their friend/sister is treated by the man, and/or his family. Some of them are only getting married to shut up their parents.
mArtiAn:
Yep, it seems Chinese men officially suck, but then my experience of western men is that they're no angels either. Daddy beat Mummy, yaddi-yaddi-ya. It's the law that matters. China has much to learn from the western application of law.
Haha, I remember years back me and missus were in Beihai and we met a very 'right-on' (and fully dreadlocked to prove it) Aussie girl. We chatted a while and then she asked me, "Are you going to hit the beach later" to which I replied with a smile, "Nope, i'm gonna wait till we're married."
She didn't hang around for drinks.
Hulk:
I don't like you anymore. 
Domestic abuse isn't really anything to joke about.
What do you tell a mArtiAn with two black eyes? Nothing, you already hulked him twice.
mArtiAn:
Everything is something to joke about; if you don't laugh, you're gonna cry.
