Murder of 13-year-old boy shocks China and draws attention to children “left behind”

Three teenagers detained on suspicion of the death of a 13-year-old classmate, whose body was found disfigured and buried in a greenhouse. Crime may have been planned

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Hong Kong (CNN) – The alleged murder of a 13-year-old boy by his classmates in a rural area of ​​northern China shocked the nation, sparking heated debates about school bullying, youth crime and the plight of tens of millions of children raised in the absence of their parents. migrant worker parents.

Three teenagers were detained by police on suspicion of killing the boy at his secondary school in a village on the outskirts of Handan city in Hebei province, after his disfigured body was found buried in an abandoned greenhouse, media reports reported. state social services last week.

Handan authorities said the boy, identified by his surname Wang, was killed on March 10 and that all suspects were detained by police the following day.

The crime was apparently planned, since, according to police, investigators discovered that the suspects began excavating Wang’s shallow grave the day before he was killed.

Wang’s family and his lawyer stated on social media that the boy had long been a victim of bullying by his three classmates, all under the age of 14.

His young age, the accusations of intimidation and the macabre nature of the allegedly premeditated murder attracted attention and sparked great outrage. Discussions about the incident dominated Chinese social media in the days that followed, attracting hundreds of millions of views, with many calling for severe punishment for the perpetrators, including the death penalty.

The tragedy also drew attention to the generation of “left behind” children in China, who live in rural areas, often in the care of family members, while their parents look for work in cities. According to state media, Wang and the three suspects were all children of migrant farm workers.

The well-being of “left-behind” children has become a hidden sacrifice of China’s rapid economic growth, driven by hundreds of millions of migrant rural workers who have spent years working outside the home to support their families.

More than one in five children in China – nearly 67 million under the age of 17 – are left behind by their parents, according to the country’s latest population census in 2020. Numerous studies and surveys have shown that these children are most vulnerable to mental health problems such as depression and anxiety, and to abuse and bullying.

Wang’s death is the latest in a series of tragic incidents involving “left behind” children that have caused a public outcry in China in recent years. These children were often victims of violent crimes, but in some cases they were also their perpetrators.

“I think this incident may just be the tip of the iceberg. The entire group of ‘left behind’ children needs more mental health support,” says Shuang Lu, assistant professor of social work at the University of Central Florida, who studied the well-being of these children.

The alleged murder

Wang, who lived with his grandparents while his father worked in a coastal province, disappeared on the afternoon of March 10 after leaving home to meet colleagues, state-run Beijing News reported.

The child was last seen in security camera footage from a store next to the school gate, sitting on the back of a scooter, with three classmates.

Before he disappeared and his cell phone stopped responding, all the money he had on WeChat, the Chinese super app, totaling 191 yuan (24 euros), was transferred to one of his colleagues, according to his father, who ran back went home when he learned of his disappearance and accessed his son’s social media account in search of clues as to his whereabouts.

The next morning, at school, the police questioned the three classmates, who had previously denied to Wang’s family that they had seen the boy. One of them ended up telling police that Wang had been killed and revealed where he was buried, according to Beijing News.

The overgrown greenhouse surrounded by dried herbs was only about 100 meters from one of the suspects’ homes, according to Beijing News. The boy’s uncle, who identified the body, told the newspaper that Wang’s face was “severely damaged.”

Wang’s father wrote on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, that his son was “beaten to death” and his body disfigured “beyond recognition.”

“I hope that the State is fair, open and equitable, imposes a severe punishment and that the murderers pay with their lives!”, he wrote beneath a video showing images from the security cameras that captured his son’s last appearance in public.

Wang’s father did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

The family’s lawyer, Zang Fanqing, said in a video posted Monday on the social media site Weibo that Wang had “suffered prolonged bullying by three of his classmates.” The publication has since been deleted.

Another classmate told state broadcaster CCTV that the three suspects had repeatedly locked Wang in a shed when they went to the bathroom during class breaks.

“One time, Wang wrote a note to the classmate who was sitting in front of him, saying that he didn’t want to go to class and that he wanted to die,” she told the broadcaster.

Wang’s aunt told CCTV that the boy was recently reluctant to go to school and often asked his grandfather for money before going.

“We thought the kid just wanted to buy tasty food, so we didn’t think much about it. Now, thinking about it, it all seems a little strange,” he says. The aunt blames herself for not noticing the signs, recalling a post Wang had written on social media saying she had suicidal thoughts.

“I thought he was under academic pressure, so I told him: ‘Don’t feel pressured by your studies. It doesn’t matter if you study well or not'”, says the aunt.

Children “Left Behind”

Concerns about bullying and violence among schoolchildren have been rising across China as an increasing number of incidents have been filmed on mobile phones and released on short video platforms.

“Left behind” children are particularly vulnerable. In a study published in 2021, nearly one in three reported recurring bullying and victimization, compared to one in four rural children living with their parents.

A survey carried out in 2019 by a Beijing-based NGO into “left behind” children revealed that 90% of them suffered emotional abuse, 65% were victims of physical violence and 30% said they had been victims of sexual abuse.

Youth crime has also increased in China in recent years. Between 2020 and 2023, prosecutors charged 243,000 minors, with an average increase of 5% per year, CCTV reported earlier this month.

In 2021, China lowered the age of criminal responsibility from 14 to 12 in an amendment to its criminal law, although it required such a charge to be approved by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the country’s highest body for investigation and prosecution.

Lu, the US-based academic, said the law is just one aspect of addressing the problem after it occurs, but that the key to prevention lies in improving children’s mental health care.

“There must be deep family or social reasons behind a child’s behavior. If their mental health issues are not resolved, (this type of tragedy) could happen again in the future,” he said, citing the need to improve awareness , prevention and intervention in the field of mental health among children in the vast rural areas of China, where the topic is still often stigmatized.

In the long term, the situation of millions of children “left behind” can only be resolved by reducing the huge inequality between the countryside and cities, Lu said. For decades, China’s booming cities and factories have depended on the cheap labor of countless migrants without giving them access to the benefits of urban social security, including education for their children.

Many “left behind” children only get to see their parents during the holidays, no more than a few times a year.

On Douyin, Wang’s father posted a video of his son playing by the sea and looking at the camera with a smile.

“Father took you to see the sea for the first time and asked if you liked it. You said yes, and every summer holiday since then I brought you here. Even now, I feel like I’m in a dream “, he wrote.

“Father will never take you to see the ocean again, my poor son.”

Top photo: Secondary school students before the National University Entrance Examination, known as “gaokao”, in Handan, north China’s Hebei province. Stringer/AFP/Getty Images

CNN’s Hassan Tayir and Wayne Chang contributed to this story.