Photo of ‘chained woman’ from her school days has been digitally edited

 

Screenshots of the posts captioned “the photo of the ‘chained Woman’ when she was in school.”

 

News Brief

In January 2022, a woman who was chained to a shed was found by a vlogger in Feng county, Xuzhou city, Jiangsu province. The woman was later dubbed the “chained woman” by netizens, and her origin and experience garnered widespread attention. In April 2023, the court in Xuzhou city sentenced six people to prison for human trafficking and abuse of the “chained woman.”

A portrait of a woman published May 14, 2023, on Twitter, claims to be a photo of the “chained woman” from her school days.

As of the issuance of this report, the tweet had been shared 396 times, 24 times with quote, and had received 1,641 likes. Similar photos had been circulating on Facebook as well.

Fact-checking

Reverse image searches found an article published in 2017 on a Chinese hairstyle design website called “Hair Station,” titled “Middle school girls’ hairstyles: youthful, beautiful, and cute.” The article featured a picture of a young woman wearing attire similar to a school uniform. A comparison shows that the figure, clothing and hairstyle of the girl, and the background and illumination in the viral photo were identical to the Hair Station picture, except that the former was in black and white while the latter was in color. The Hair Station picture has been circulating here and here, and has also appeared in many articles related to “girl hairstyles,” “female high school students,” “school uniforms,” and other related topics. HKBU Fact Check has yet to find evidence linking this photo to the “chained woman” incident.

 

Screenshot comparison of the viral photo (left) and the Hair Station photo (right).

 

After further investigation, it was found that the woman’s facial features in the viral photo match those of Li Ying, a missing woman featured on the Chinese missing person website “Baby Come Home.” Li is a girl from southwestern China’s Sichuan province who went missing in 1996. She was speculated to be the “chained woman” by some netizens after the incident was exposed in early 2022, as the two women shared similar facial features. However, Li’s mother told The Paper, a Chinese media organization, that she was informed Jan. 29, 2022 by the police that her daughter’s DNA did not match that of the “chained woman” in Xuzhou.

 

The woman’s facial features in the viral photo (left) match those of Li, a missing woman from Sichuan (right).

 

To sum up, the viral photo was edited. It is not a photo of the “chained woman” from her student days.