BEIJING: A woman victim at the centre of one of China’s most serious serial kidnap cases in recent years has finally had her day in court at proceedings which heard that her biological parents had died young because of their ordeal.
Yang Niuhua was born in 1990 in a village in Zhijin county of Guizhou province in southwestern China.
She was kidnapped by Yu Huaying, now 61, who lived next door to her in November 1995, the China National Radio reported.
She was sold to a family in rural Handan in the northern province of Hebei about 2,000km away from Guizhou.
Yang (far left) with her biological parents in the only existing photo of them together. - Baidu
Besides Yang, Yu abducted a total of 17 children from 12 families across China in the 1990s, according to the Guiyang Intermediate People’s Court in Guizhou.
The court held the first hearing of the case in September last year at which Yu was sentenced to death. It was the most serious serial child abduction case in the past 10 years.
Earlier this month, the court reheard the case after evidence emerged of more victims after Yang collected more evidence of Yu’s crimes.
After luring little Yang to go with her to buy knitting needles, Yu took her to the Hebei village where Yang was sold for 3,500 yuan (US$500) to a deaf-and-mute man, surnamed Li.
Yang was given the new name of Li Suyan and raised by Li and his mother, surnamed Wang.
Yang recalled she was frequently beaten by Li and Wang.
Yang Niuhua with one of her “adoptive” relatives about a month after she was abducted. - Baidu
“Every time they hit me, I was asking myself why my parents didn’t come to pick me up,” she was quoted as saying.
“I didn’t believe my father would abandon me because I remembered he once fed me chicken and he did that so gently. His eyes were full of love,” she added.
Her new father, Li, let her drop out of school at the age of 13 and she began to work in factories as an under-aged migrant worker. Yang married in 2009 and has three children with her husband.
She said she remembered her original given name was Niuhua because once in her dream, she heard her mother repeatedly call her “Niuhua, Niuhua”.
She also remembered some geographic details about her hometown in Guizhou.
In April 2021, Yang got in touch with her biological elder sister through the social media platform Douyin.
Yang Niuhua (left) and her elder sister Sangying, reunited at last. - Baidu
While reuniting with her sister in their home village, Yang was heartbroken to learn that her parents both passed away in their 30s, several years after she was kidnapped.
Her parents spent a fruitless year searching for her and the stress of the situation led her father to turn to alcohol and her mother to develop mental problems. Both her parents died young as a result.
“I had imagined some scenarios for why my parents did not find me. For example, I guessed they were divorced, or they had got a son later. However, I didn’t expect that they would die because of the deep depression from losing me,” said Yang.
“Many people asked me why only me had tried so hard to find justice. My answer is that my parents died due to her crime.”
Yang managed to find a man who served as a middleman to introduce Yu to the buyer families in Hebei. She spent months persuading him to testify against Yu.
“I told him that he was already over 90 years old and it was highly possible that he would not receive any jail punishment. I asked him why would he want to hold on to this secret until he died?” said Yang.
When the verdict of the first hearing was made last year, Yang said she felt relieved because “everybody knew Yu is a bad person”. - South China Morning Post
