Domestic Violence Law Needed in China

"One in four women in China is subject of abuse by their spouse. But China doesn"

One in four women in China is subject of abuse by their spouse. But China doesn’t have a specific law forbidding domestic violence.

Kim Lee, a high-profile wife who puts a face on domestic violence after winning her divorce case against her abusive husband.

And like many victims of domestic violence, Kim Lee kept her husband's abuses a secret for years.

“I really did not talk about it," she says. "Once my sister-in-law noticed some bruises on my arm, I said 'your brother'. And she just quickly dismissed as 'nanren dou shi zheyangzide', men are all like that," she laughs.

"So I never said anything, to anyone, until last August, two August ago, until that year.”

Kim Lee is an American citizen married to Chinese celebrity Li Yang, a multimillionaire founder of a very popular English teaching method.

In 2011, Kim Lee posted graphic pictures on Chinese social media – telling the real story of their marriage. Bruises on her knees, swelling on her front head, and an ear turned purple for the beatings.

“I think it struck a very deep nerve.. of women understanding that this happens but we can never say it happened," she says.

"And I think that the fact that I said it happened really struck something deep inside that is not specific to China, that is just specific to women.”

That was the first time in China that a high-profile wife had publicly announced that she’d been beaten. Her husband admitted the beatings in interviews and said he never thought she’d go to the police because that’s not what Chinese women do.

Their 18-month legal battle was to become one of the country’s most closely watched divorce case. The court finally granted Kim Lee a divorce on February, along with custody of their three children and compensation for the abuse. The court even issued a restraining order against her ex-husband – the first time ever in Beijing.

Yet she says, the lack of law on domestic violence means that throughout the process, institutions were at a loss on how to treat her case.

“It's really not that authorities don't care it's that they don't know what to do, and their ignorance about how to handle things leads them to just push responsibility off.”

Women rights organizations in China have drafted a law to define and punish domestic violence. They’re pushing the government to adopt it.

Liu Xiaoquan is a women's rights lawyer based in Beijing. He says that many provinces have already gone ahead and enacted local legislation on domestic violence. But still he's optimistic that a national law will be passed soon although it’s hard to say whether it will take months, or years.

“A law on domestic violence in China is now very clearly what the people want. All the conditions are there. Not only it is doable now, but it is necessary, the legal framework is there.”

But many believe that a change in culture needs to happen before the law can be widely accepted and effectively implemented, says Fang Gang, a professor of gender studies at China's Forestry University.

“People still tend to see domestic violence as a rare event, and do not understand how deep rooted in the culture it is. The law is very important, but I think that the most important thing is the change that needs to happen in people's knowledge.”

To push for that change, Fang has been working to help men as well. In 2010 he started a hotline on domestic violence and encouraged men to call in. The very first call came from a low-level government official. He said he felt unhappy because he could not get promoted at work, and life at home deteriorated. He confessed on the phone of having beaten his wife. Fang helped him think over his frustrations.
“Why did he want to get promoted so badly? Behind these anxieties there are expectations about men in society. They have to be successful and make money. We helped him think about his problem from this perspective.”

Kim Lee says that she now wants to help other women, and women rights organizations hope to build on teh momentum of her case to help other victims, like Li Yan.

Li Yan is now convicted of killing her husband and facing a death penalty. She suffered years of abuse, went to the police but they didn’t intervene. Her complaints were pushed aside as “private family matters” – a common reaction in China.

Lee shows me a pile of handwritten messages she received since her story first got reported. Most included the word ‘zhichi’, Chinese for ‘I support you.’

“It's not about my personal story anymore, now that is resolved. What matters now is the women behind me, they should not go through with what I went through. The message I received the night of my divorce, no matter what tonight there is definitely one less man beating his wife. It's time.”

• China Domestic Violence
• Rebecca Valli
• Kim Lee
• Li Yang