She added: “When his father was still alive, he was able to take care of him. But when his dad passed away 12 years ago, I couldn’t handle him on my own.”
“I had no choice but to chain him up and lock him in the room. It’s been more than 10 years.”
Zhiqiang’s sister, Wang Shufen, cries every time she sees her brother in the animal-like state.
Footage of their most recent meeting shows her sobbing as she inspects the marks on her brother’s arms made by the wrought-iron shackles.
Now in her 50s, Shufen said: “I wish it were me chained up and that my brother were free instead.
“You never saw the times, while he was still lucid, when he begged my family to let him out.”
Ding Yanfang, who is party secretary of their village, said: “When Zhiqiang was still a boy, he was very smart despite being deaf-mute.
“When he returned from the special needs school with mental problems, there was little we could do. It was heartbreaking.”
The village secretary said the local government provides the family with monthly subsidies. But he hopes members of the public will help raise enough funds to send Zhiqiang to a psychiatric hospital.
