It doesn’t take a lot of time in China to see household violence play out in supermarkets, in schools, or even in the streets. But exactly how common is domestic violence in China? In the face of recent evidence from Peking University that more than 70 percent of all children suffer from some form of physical or emotional abuse, not to mention the never-stopping stories of spousal abuse (by both men and women) that pour out in the press, we wanted to take an episode to look into the issue and ask what the hell is going on?
That’s why this week, Sinica is delighted to host Su Wenying and Cai Yiping, two leading advocates of women’s and children’s rights who join us for a discussion of domestic violence in China. Our conversation starts with a discussion of the current legal landscape and moves on to the prevalence of domestic abuse with some surprising stats about how education and social status does and does not affect the prevalence of violence in this country, before we look at public awareness of the problem, and ask to what extent it seems likely to change anytime soon.