Nightmares uncovered after girl dies at Chinese web addiction rehab school

Several days ago, a Chinese reporter from the newspaper The Mirror (法制晚报) spoke to police authorities in Zhengzhou about the case of 19-year-old Ling Ling. He wanted to know how Ling Ling, a female student who had recently died during “training” after being enrolled in a web addiction rehab school called the Zhengzhou Boqiang New Conceptual Life Training School, had died. Her autopsy, police told the reporter, showed that Ling Ling’s death had been caused by contact between a rigid object and her head, which caused fatal skull and brain damage.

Apparently, during a lengthy training session meant as punishment, teachers pulled Ling Ling up by her arms and legs and then dropped her—repeatedly—to the ground. When she began to vomit blood and became unable to stand, her classmate Xin Xin said, the teachers said that she was faking and continued to beat her. Both girls ended up in the hospital, but Ling Ling’s bed was in the morgue, where her mother was called the following morning to identify her body.

Web addiction in the Middle Kingdom

Web addiction—which often means addiction to MMORPGs—is a serious problem in China. In fact, China was the first country to officially name internet addiction a clinical disorder, and for years, the government has considered it a major health threat. Experts estimate that China has about 4 million people that are seriously addicted to the web and/or online gaming.

(See: Education and addiction in China)

Needless to say, internet addiction mostly affects China’s youth, and for the parents of game- and web-addicted teens, one potential treatment option is the boot-camp-style rehab schools that have sprung up around the country. In fact, China has around 300 such schools. But “treatment” methods can differ quite significantly, and there have long been questions about the safety of some of these facilities. The Mirror‘s report found that Ling Ling’s case isn’t as unusual as you might think.

Treating addiction with violence

In fact, reporters found that in the past few years there have been 12 similar cases of abuse at anti-web-addiction “schools”, with corporal punishment (i.e. physical violence) playing a role in 90% of them. Including Ling Ling’s case, there have been seven reported deaths at these schools since 2008.

In one instance, a 15-year-old child named Deng Senshan was sent by his parents to a Nanning training camp, and then died within eight hours of his arrival. And shockingly, eight hours isn’t the fastest that staff at these schools have managed to do serious harm. A 13-year-old student had his clavicle fractured by staff at a school in Liaoning within just two hours of his arrival when he attempted to run away.

The schools’ promotional materials are full of phrases like “guidance” and “training”, but the contracts parents sign when enrolling their kids often states that the school does employ ‘suffering’ and ‘disciplinary’ teaching methods and that the parents agree to permit this so long as the students are not injured.