For more than two months, or the past 35 years, Guo Li has been searching for an answer that proves herself.
At the age of 13, Guo Li, who lives in Weinan City, Shaanxi Province, was abducted and trafficked to Yinji Village in Huji Township (now Huji Township) in Heze, Shandong Province. In a village about 600 kilometers from her hometown, she was guarded day and night by buyers, lost her freedom, and was forced to become a "wife" and have children. Still a middle school student, she had to learn to cook and make shoes, and bear the fear and hurt alone in an unfamiliar place.
Two years after being abducted, Guo Li seized the opportunity to escape from house arrest and was forced to leave her son under the age of one. However, by the time she returned home, everything had changed. Under the arrangement of her family, she experienced a marriage that lasted only eight years and gave birth to two children; The gossip broke her heart, so she left to work alone; Forced to leave her three children, she often feels guilty and indebted, but it is difficult to repair the rift in family affection.
Under Guo Li's active pursuit, 35 years after the incident, in March 2022, the police opened an investigation into Guo Li's abduction case. On December 19 of the same year, the case was heard in the first instance of the Peony District People's Court in Heze City, and the court announced that the verdict would be pronounced at a later date.
On February 20, 2023, The Paper learned that because the defendant Zhao Moumou, who abducted Guo Li, had multiple criminal records before, the prosecution recommended a strict sentence. The verdict shows that the defendant Zhao committed the crime of human trafficking and was sentenced by the court to 12 years in prison, but rejected Guo Li's claim for compensation totaling 800,000 yuan.
Guo Li said she believed that the 12-year prison sentence for the trafficker was "light" and had applied to the prosecution to appeal the civil part of the criminal offense.
But the result also gave her some relief. She said the law proved that it was not her fault that she was trafficked.
The girl who was taken away
When the answer finally came, Guo Li was nervous.
In recent years, she has worked as a live-in nanny in a family in Xi'an, taking care of an elderly man in his 80s. At four or five o'clock in the morning, she wakes up and helps the elderly eat, wash, and take care of the cats and parrots in the house.
Compared with her previous life, this period of time is stable and calm. Guo Li is very happy, and the family regards her as a relative. She called the old man "old lady" and the others "brother" and "sister-in-law". During the New Year, she cooked a hearty Chinese New Year's Eve meal and spent it together as a family.
On February 17, 2023, Guo Li received a phone call to inform that her case would be sentenced in the first instance on the 20th. That night, she didn't sleep well, struggling with what to do if the verdict was not satisfactory. The next day, she suffered from a stomach problem, which was a problem that fell from running around and eating from time to time when she used to work.
She asked her girlfriend to accompany her, and the two walked around the Xi'an moat to chat. The girlfriend advised her not to dwell on the result, "You have been very brave to stand up." ”
At the beginning of 1987, Guo Licai was 13 years old and was in the first year of junior high school in Huaxian County, Shaanxi Province. A few days after the start of school, Guo Li met a middle-aged couple on her way to school asking her for directions, and his wife was holding a little girl. Guo Li showed them the way, and the two wanted to thank her for buying her a bottle of pink soda in a glass bottle. This soda is a bottle of two cents a local area, and students often drink it, but Guo Li didn't think much about it, so she drank a few sips, and then she was confused.
When she became conscious again, Guo Li was already on a train, dizzy, surrounded by the two people who asked for directions. She asked them why she was in the car. The two told her that they would go to Shandong to do some errands, so they would take her for two days and come back.
In her memory, she followed the two off the train, reversed several more trips, and checked into an inn when it was almost dark. At night, Guo Li felt someone pressing on her body in her sleep, she didn't know who it was, resisted vigorously, and shouted. The person who came may have been shocked, turned his head and walked out, and the moment he opened the door, Guo Li recognized the person as the man who had walked with her all the way.
The next day, another dark and thin middle-aged man came to the hostel. The couple told Guo Li that they had finished their business, but there was no money to travel, and they wanted to borrow some money locally, let her stay for two days, and pick her up when the money was raised. The black and thin middle-aged man asked Guo Li, would he be willing to go with him? In order not to encounter the previous night's experience again, Guo Li agreed. This middle-aged man was Li Jirui, a native of Yinji Village, Huji Township, and that year, he was 38 years old.
Guo Li quickly realized that something was wrong. Li Jirui and a few others took her into a rural courtyard, where there were many people. The child and the woman kept saying, "Look at the flower daughter-in-law coming, look at the flower daughter-in-law." When she entered the house again, she saw a happy word pasted in the middle of the wall. Guo Li thought, it's over. She stepped back, and the men wouldn't let them go, blocking the way.
She asked Li Jirui, didn't she say to borrow money? I'll pay it back in two days. He said, no, you are the daughter-in-law who was bought.
Guo Li begged them to send her home, or write to her father at home, and how much money was spent on her, his father would make up for it. They refused, saying that they didn't want money, that is, they wanted a daughter-in-law.
On the first night of this "home", Guo Li sat on the bed with a quilt, full of thoughts of ways to escape. She regretted how she was so stupid and believed what others said.
In Yinji Village, Heze, Shandong, Guo Li remembers that more than 30 years ago, she was brought back to the buyer's home from this road Photo by surging news reporter He Peiyun
A difficult escape
In Yinji Village, Guo Li spent nearly 2 years.
For the first four or five days, Guo Li was locked in her bedroom. She thought, she had to come up with something, she could get sick, and if she went to the hospital, she would definitely meet strangers to help her. She drank all the kerosene from the kerosene lamp on the table. When Li's family heard the movement, they called a doctor in the village and gave her a water enema. More than half a month later, she cut a few nails from the plank and swallowed them, and the doctor came to induce her vomiting again, pouring the mush under her, and she vomited blood.
At that time, the daughter-in-law of the third son of the Li family accompanied her. The old third daughter-in-law was also bought, and her hometown is in Tongchuan, Shaanxi Province. When Guo Li arrived at Li's house, the third daughter-in-law was pregnant and had a big belly. She advised Guo Li, "I came here like you, you see I'm pregnant, how good is this, let's live steadily." ”
Among the relatives of the Li family, Guo Li and the third daughter-in-law are close, and they feel that they have the same illness and pity, and they are all sold from Shaanxi. Guo Li recalled that one afternoon, the third daughter-in-law brought half a bottle of wine and told her that if she drank it, she would write a letter to Guo Li's family. She believed it, drank it in one gulp, and woke up again at noon the next day, with no clothes on her body, covered with a quilt, and her body ached.
Li Jirui told her, if you go back, people will look down on her. The old third daughter-in-law also helped to say how good it would be to build a house after giving birth to a child in the future. Guo Li couldn't help but scold, but slowly, she felt ashamed and began to hesitate, her father had a head and a face in his hometown and was strong, if he knew, he would definitely kill her.
During the time Guo Li disappeared, the family did not stop looking for her. Her parents, five uncles, etc. all went out to find them, and went to Xi'an, Shangtongguan, Tongchuan and other cities to distribute leaflets, but there was no news of her.
At that time, Guo Li, Li Jirui, and the three husband and wife of the Li family lived in the same courtyard and could not freely enter and leave the house. Once, when she quarreled with her third daughter-in-law, she learned that the Li family spent 30,000 yuan to buy her.
In the fall of 1987, Guo Li became pregnant. The Li family was happy and agreed that she would stand at the door, as long as she didn't leave their sight. Pregnancy also affected her strong desire to escape, "The heart is dead, maybe it will go on like this." ”
The turning point occurred in the first lunar month of 1989, after giving birth. The Li family took Guo Li to the gathering, she took advantage of the excuse of people to go to the toilet, held the child and turned her head on the national highway, bought a ticket for more than two yuan, and got on the bus. She remembered that she was trafficked in Heze City, so she went to the Heze public security organ for help. As soon as she entered the gate of the public security organ, she couldn't help but cry when she thought of the grievances she had suffered. The police promised her that they would write a letter to her home in Shaanxi and tell her to go back to Li's house first and wait.
More than a month later, the police came with Guo Li's father. In the days of living in Shandong, Guo Li's accent changed, and her appearance changed due to pregnancy. But his father pulled a scar behind Guo Li's ear and said that this can't change, it's definitely her.
The Li family did not let Guo Li take away the child under the age of one, and she did not leave. This is her only tie in the Li family, "Who will take the child with me when I leave?" Guo Li's father saw his daughter hesitate and was anxious. He said, "Your mother cries every day, her eyes are almost blind, don't you look at your mother?" ”
Guo Li relented. She promised the Li family to keep the child and not hold Li Jirui responsible.
A marriage ruined by rumors
After returning to her hometown, Guo Li's experience was hidden.
The family rarely talked to Guo Li about "this matter", and also told her not to talk about it. She herself worries about her parents. When she was a child, the conditions at her family were not good, because her father's thinking was active, so he made some money running transportation in his hometown. She thought, her father is a local "head and face" figure, how can this matter be raised when it is spread?
The father is afraid that Guo Li will run back to Shandong to find the child, and he also hopes that she can settle down. After returning home for more than a month, he arranged a marriage for her. At first, she did not agree, her mother persuaded her, outsiders only knew that she was trafficked, but did not know that she had given birth, "You are not a girl now, it is difficult to marry off." ”
Persuaded by her family, Guo Li met each other once and married in 1989, when she was only 15 years old.
Guo Li has another layer of "guilt" in her heart. She knew that her parents had sold all the cars they had done in order to retrieve her, and that they had debts to their relatives, and that her parents were experiencing the exhaustion and pain of finding her. Guo Li attributed all these "difficulties" to herself, so many things depended on her parents.
Shortly after marriage, Guo Li and her husband had a son, and life was relatively peaceful. But eventually there were waves in the village. Since she returned home, Li Jirui has frequently sent letters to the Guo family, three or four times a month when it is intensive.
Guo Li's father secretly stopped the letters and prevented her from seeing the contents. Over time, Guo Li's father became annoyed and refused to receive any more letters, which were later sent to the village brigade. The villagers began to discuss that Guo Li had given birth to a child outside.
The rumors reached Guo Li's husband's ears, and he began to look for something with her in life, and he could not speak for a month and cold war with her. Guo Li has been "willing" life until the birth of her youngest daughter.
In 1997, Guo Li divorced her husband, and the court awarded her son to her husband and her daughter to her.
The hometown has become Guo Li's sad place. After the divorce, Guo Li ran out to work with a breath, running around the country alone, and the time to go home all year round did not add up to more than a week.
"Abducted and sold" and "divorced within a few years of marriage", the rumors in the village continued. She loves beauty and goes home in delicate business clothes, some people talk about her being raised, and others say that she still has contact with the Li family in Shandong.
She explained over and over again that it was not her fault that she was trafficked, but gradually, she was tired of proving her innocence and simply avoided the whole environment.
In the village, Guo Li holds the long-awaited verdict Photo by surging news reporter He Peiyun
Families torn apart
Over the years, Guo Li has worked in many places. In 2008, Guo Li's father passed away. She is determined to replace her father in "supporting a family" and making money.
In a wine company, she went from salesperson to regional manager, learning sales skills. In 2011, she went to Russia to work as a waitress at a Chinese restaurant in St. Petersburg, where she stayed for two years. With the money she earned from her part-time job, she spent tens of thousands of yuan to renovate an old house in her hometown in rural Shaanxi. Later, she went to Japan for another year, helping with commodity sorting work at a logistics company, earning more than 10,000 yuan a month.
Guo Li is capable, idle, direct and hearty. Abroad, she often felt stuffy and wanted to talk to someone, so she always pulled Chinese students who came to the hotel to chat.
But she hardly mentioned the past. For more than 30 years, she lived a life far from her relatives and hometown, always digesting emotions alone. After not being with her children for a long time, she hopes to compensate for the absence in her own way, and when her sons and daughters get married and have children, she will transfer the money in her hand to them.
When Guo Li left the Li family, the eldest son Long Long was still an infant. At the time of goodbye, Long Long was already a teenager. In 1999, Guo Li couldn't let go of her son and went to a hotel in Heze to send a telegram to the Li family, asking to bring her son to meet. She remembered that it was summer, and Li Jirui and five or six other people came with their children. Long Long wore a short-sleeved gown, and she was already stranger.
She doesn't blame him, and hopes that she can compensate her son in the future, and everything can be given to him. She asked the company to be transferred to Heze for a few years so that she could see her children in her usual free time.
In May 2017, the eldest son got married in Shandong and invited her to participate. Guo Li did not want to go, she was afraid to return to the village where she had been trafficked. The eldest son said that the marriage should be videotaped, and the newlyweds should call his parents and parents, and he didn't want to have regrets. She eventually agreed. As soon as the wedding was over, she left immediately.
As for the second son born with her ex-husband, Guo Li accidentally learned that he wrote "missing" in the column of his mother in his file. She held back at the moment, didn't say anything, and later blocked her second son and broke off contact. "He is missing, it is better to think that I am dead." Then I'll disappear. She said.
Guo Li's youngest daughter, Liu Yu, remembers that when she was a child, her mother always worked outside the home, spending only three or four days a year with her, and there was very little communication between mother and daughter. She had heard people in the village talking about her mother, and one year when the "brother" of the Li family came for the New Year, she clearly learned that her mother had been trafficked.
Among the three children, Guo Li and her youngest daughter are closer. In the autumn of the previous year, Liu Yu took her children to Xi'an for a week, and Guo Li took her grandson to the supermarket and playground, taking many photos of the children playing.
In 2019, Guo Li thought about working abroad to save some money. She borrowed money from relatives and handed it over to an intermediary for more than 30,000 yuan, wanting to go to Australia to work. Unexpectedly, the intermediary ran away. She ran out of money, went to Xi'an to find a housekeeper, covered food and housing, and met her current employer.
"That's how the first half of my life passed." Sometimes, Guo Li will say this.
She often asked herself, why is life like this? How did the family fall apart? For a while, she suffered from depression and just wanted to be on her own. She arranged for herself to work, travel, and if her body did not stop, her brain would not think of painful memories.
But the painful memory of life has not disappeared.
Speak out about it
In 2011, while browsing Weibo, Guo Li saw that Shangguan Zhengyi, a civil anti-trafficking volunteer, often posted information about abducted children and women and news about their rescue. She felt "my heart was on fire again." Over the years, no one really understood the "thorn in her heart".
So, Guo Li contacted Shangguan Zhengyi to seek help. At that time, she did not think about pursuing Li Jirui's criminal responsibility. The son who stayed in Li's family called the Guo family, crying that he was about to graduate and look for a job, and that his father's arrest would have an impact.
She told the police not to let Li Jirui send another letter. After that, Li Jirui's frequent letters stopped. But in August 2020, Li Jirui died in a car accident.
On March 1, 2022, Guo Li saw Shangguan Zhengyi forward a notice of a special operation by public security organs across the country to combat the crime of abducting and trafficking women and children. This time, she had fewer scruples. The sons and daughters are adults and have their own careers and families.
She wants to tell her story. Shangguan Zhengyi told her story on Weibo and said that it was a realistic version of the "Blind Mountain Case".
The next day, the public security departments of Shaanxi Province and Shandong Province contacted Guo Li successively. She was so happy that she spent more than four hours telling the public security department staff about her experience over the years. She remembers that she was busy until after 2 a.m., but she wasn't tired at all.
The case was turned over again, the eldest son was dissatisfied, he wanted to pass on the word through Liu Yu, Li Jirui was dead, why should he be pursued? Liu Yu was angry and asked him, what if the same thing happened to his own daughter? Later, Liu Yu's WeChat and phone were blocked by this brother.
On March 12, 2022, Zhao Moumou, a Weinan man who abducted and trafficked Guo Li, was criminally detained by the Peony Branch of the Heze Public Security Bureau on suspicion of the crime of abducting and trafficking women, and was arrested on April 18 of the same year with the approval of the procuratorate.
Photo by He Peiyun, a reporter from The Paper at the Peony District People's Court of Heze City
At 9 a.m. on December 19, 2022, the case opened in the first instance of the Peony District People's Court in Heze City, and because the defendant Zhao Moumou had multiple criminal records before, the prosecution recommended a strict sentence. In court, Guo Li asked the defendant Zhao how much money she got from selling her? Zhao retracted his confession in court, saying that he had never seen her and had not sold her. On the same day, the court announced that the verdict would be pronounced at a later date.
Two months later, on February 20, 2023, the Peony District People's Court of Heze City ruled in the first instance that the defendant Zhao Moumou committed the crime of human trafficking and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
The judgment specifically mentions that after committing the crime of trafficking in human beings in this case, the defendant Zhao committed other new crimes in 1991, 2002 and 2013 respectively, which met the recalculation situation stipulated in the second paragraph of article 78 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China in 1979 that "if the crime is committed again within the time limit for prosecution, the time limit for prosecution for the previous crime is calculated from the date of the subsequent crime", so this case is within the statute of limitations.
Guo Li feels helped by the law, but she still wants to continue to hold traffickers accountable. Guo Li said she believed that the 12-year prison sentence for the trafficker was "light" and had applied to the prosecution to appeal the civil part of the criminal offense. In the previously submitted "Criminal Incidental Civil Indictment", Guo Li requested that the defendant Zhao Man be sentenced to compensate a total of 800,000 yuan for economic losses, transportation expenses, and moral damages.
After Liu Yu learned of the verdict in the case, he expressed support for his mother's insistence on appeal. Since Guo Li decided to pursue responsibility, she understood her mother's choice and supported her to stand up and protect herself. But she also had difficulty comforting, she understood that if she hadn't experienced it, no one would have been able to empathize with her mother.
Guo Li in St. Petersburg, Russia Interviewee Courtesy photo
After getting the verdict, Guo Li decided to go to Yinji Village in Heze. The village has long been different, with fields planted with corn and sweet potatoes turned into plantations, timber mills have been built around it, and most of the old houses have been demolished and new ones have been built.
But she still remembers many details: more than 30 years ago, she was turned from this road and took her bicycle around the long way; There used to be a date tree in the yard over there; A kind female neighbor gave her a coat that her children did not wear; And the cold wind that poured in through the cracks in the earthen walls on winter nights gave her frostbite.
When she was trapped in the village before, she had seen girls bought back by another family. Just like when she first arrived in the village, people crowded to see the "flower girl". She wanted to have a word with the girl, but there were many people around. As a result, the next day, she heard that the girl had been hanged.
At a commissary in the village, holding a verdict with a red seal, she happily told villagers she had met, "I was trafficked." The trafficker was sentenced to 12 years. ”
Guo Li wants people to see that the girl being trafficked is the fault of human traffickers. This time she made up her mind, "It's already here, I'm going to go down bravely... If this thing passes, I will not be afraid of anything anymore. ”
(In order to protect privacy, Guo Li, Liu Yu, and Shangguan Zhengyi are pseudonyms)