The alleged murder of a 13-year-old boy by his classmates in rural northern China has shocked the nation, igniting heated debates about school bullying, juvenile crime and the plight of tens of millions of children raised in the absence of their migrant worker parents.
Three teenagers have been detained by police on suspicion of killing the boy at their junior high school in a village on the outskirts of Handan city in Hebei province, after his disfigured body was found buried in an abandoned greenhouse, state media reported last week.
Authorities in Handan said the boy, identified by his surname Wang, was killed on March 10, and that all suspects were taken into police custody the following day.
The crime had apparently been planned, as investigators had found the suspects started digging Wang’s shallow grave a day before he was killed, according to police.
Wang’s family and their lawyer said on social media the boy had long been bullied by the three classmates, who are all under age 14.
Their young ages, the accusations of bullying and the gruesome nature of the allegedly premeditated murder drew wide attention and outrage. Discussions about the incident have dominated Chinese social media in the days since, drawing hundreds of millions of views, with many calling for severe punishment of the perpetrators, including the death penalty.
The tragedy also put the spotlight on China’s generation of “left behind” children, living in rural areas often in the care of relatives, as their parents seek work in cities. Wang and the three suspects were all children of rural migrant workers, state media reported.
The welfare of “left behind” children has become a hidden sacrifice of China’s rapid economic rise, propelled by hundreds of millions of rural migrant workers who spent years toiling away from home to provide for their family.
More than one in five children in China – nearly 67 million under age 17 – are left behind by their parents, according to the country’s latest population census in 2020. Numerous studies and surveys have shown that such children are more vulnerable to mental health problems like depression and anxiety, and to abuse and bullying.
Wang’s death is the latest in a string of tragic incidents involving “left behind” children that have caused public uproar in China in recent years. These children were often victims, but in some cases also perpetrators, of violent crimes.
“I think this incident may be just the tip of the iceberg. The entire group of ‘left behind’ children needs more mental health support,” said Shuang Lu, an assistant professor in social work at the University of Central Florida, who has studied the well-being of these children.
The alleged murder
Wang, who was living with his grandparents while his father worked in a coastal province, went missing on the afternoon of March 10 after leaving home to meet his classmates, the state-run Beijing News reported.
He was last seen on security camera footage taken from a store by the school gate, sitting at the back of a scooter around three of his classmates.
Before he vanished and his phone became unresponsive, all his money on WeChat, China’s super app, totaling 191 yuan ($26) was transferred to one of the classmates, according to his father, who rushed home upon learning he was missing and logged in to his son’s social media account in search of clues to his whereabouts.
The next morning at the school, police questioned the three classmates, who had previously denied to Wang’s family that they had seen the boy. One of them eventually told the police Wang had been killed and revealed where he was buried, according to the Beijing News.
The overgrown greenhouse surrounded by dry weeds was only about 100 meters (330 feet) from the home of one of the suspects, according to the Beijing News. The boy’s uncle, who identified the body, told the outlet that Wang’s face was “severely damaged.”