A father in China who has been criticised for locking his naked toddler son in an iron cage claims the pen was purely used to prevent the boy from wandering.
On June 16, several naked toddlers were spotted on a red tricycle parked by the roadside in Hainan province, southern China, and one of them was inside an iron cage.
The person recording the video said: “This poor kid. How could the parents be so cruel? The sun is so strong, he could get sunburned.”
Worried about possible abuse or child trafficking, passers-by alerted the police.
On June 18, the police confirmed that the tricycle belonged to a man surnamed Diao from Henan province in central China, who is the father of the children.
His wife, Yang, has a cognitive disability and has given birth to six children.
The family lives on a modified double-decker tricycle and travels around China doing odd jobs.
Diao said he was eating at a restaurant during the incident and could not manage both his wife and all the children, so he left four of them resting on the tricycle.
Some were not wearing clothes because of the heat.
Diao claimed the iron cage, which is normally used to store clothes, was placed in front of the children to stop them from falling.
He added that one child crawled in while playing and that the cage was not locked.
The police said the family had been temporarily relocated to a relief centre, where health checks were carried out.
According to Ningbo Evening News, the children are in good physical condition and the couple are emotionally stable.
Staff from the local Disabled Persons’ Federation and Women’s Federation also provided clothes, shoes and toys for the children.
The police have told Diao to fulfil his parental duties and avoid extreme safety measures.
The local authorities have also arranged ferry transport, and the family will soon return to their hometown in Henan.
The incident went viral on mainland social media, with related posts racking up over 60 million views.
One online observer said: “Thankfully this was not abuse, but the father still deserves harsh criticism for keeping his kids in such poor conditions.”
“Allowing a woman with an intellectual disability to have six children is crazy and reckless. It shows a disregard for life,” said another.
Cases of children being harmed as a result of parental neglect are not uncommon in China.
On June 15, a three-year-old girl was accidentally locked in a hot car by her parents and nearly fainted from heat and lack of oxygen. She was rescued by three secondary school students who smashed the window.
In May last year, a father in eastern China injured his son by throwing a pomegranate at him, rupturing the boy’s spleen.
