A
mother has spoken of her torment after being forced to keep her
mentally ill son shackled in a home-made cage for more than a decade:
Wang Muxiang, 74, locked away her schizophrenic son Wu Yuanhong after he
murdered a 13-year-old boy in his village in China in 2001.
Wu
was released from jail a year later as authorities ruled that his
illness meant he was not legally responsible for his actions.
But his mother feared he would kill again so caged him in an empty room in the family home.
Heart-rending
images now show 42-year-old Wu sitting on blankets in the narrow
enclosure with his feet shackled to a heavy chain and wearing only a
T-shirt and underwear.
He is given three meals a day by his mother, who gives him a pan when he needs to go to the toilet.
After
he was released from jail, he was chained up but repeatedly escaped and
scared residents as he walked around Lijiachong village near Ruichang,
south east China.
His
mother asked local blacksmiths to weld a cage but they refused, fearing
that Wu might attack them if he escaped. So Mrs Wang was forced to do
it herself.
She said: "My son may be insane, and beat someone to death, but he's still my son.
"To use my own hands to place him in a cage was very hard to take, like being stabbed with a knife.
"Every time I delivered food, I would sit at his cage and cry. Now my tears are dried up."
Many
mentally ill people in China go without proper treatment due to a lack
of resources and qualified professionals, particularly in rural areas.
There
were only around 20,000 psychiatrists to serve the country's population
of 1.35billion, according to the country’s Ministry of Health in 2010.
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