China child abuse: three teachers detained after viral video emerges of two toddlers with their hands tied behind their backs
- The video featured one child who was tied to a door handle and another was restrained lying in a bed
- The school apologised and is temporarily closed
Three teachers from a day care centre in eastern China have been detained after a video emerged of two toddlers under their care being held with their hands tied behind their backs.
In a short video clip that went viral last Friday, the two small children cried loudly while struggling to free themselves. It is unclear when the actual incident took place.
Both children were held in a single room. One child was tied to a door handle while the other was lying in a bed with his hands tightly fastened behind his back. This boy kept crying and screaming, “I don’t want, I don’t want.”
It is unclear who shot the video, but it was a woman who focused the camera on the toddlers one by one and laughed while filming.
The owner of the centre, Qidong Beirui Education Consulting, confirmed the incident in a public apology later in the day.
“We deeply regret what was done to the children in the video and we admit that we have inescapable responsibility for this,” it said.
The centre has been closed since the incident, pledging to provide better training to its teachers and install more surveillance cameras to improve monitoring of teachers’ behaviour.
Cases of child abuse at education institutions in China repeatedly made news headlines in recent years.
On Monday, a seven-year-old boy in Guangzhou died from serious injuries after he was beaten by a teacher from a tutoring centre late last month, the Shangyou News reported.
He was repeatedly hit in the head until he passed out before being sent to intensive care on May 25, a police investigation later found.
Prosecutors across China approved the arrest of more than 45,800 people involved in child abuse last year, compared with around 38,800 in 2020.
