Parents Allege Children Were Abused, Drugged and Molested at Chinese Kindergarten

A crowd gathered Friday outside the gates of RYB Kindergarten in Xintiandi, in eastern Beijing. Anger over allegations of mistreatment has laid bare the distrust that many Chinese feel about schools and their accountability.
Bryan Denton for The New York Times

A scandal of alleged child abuse at a Chinese kindergarten has rocked the country, prompting public outrage, parental soul-searching, government pledges and online censorship.

State-run Xinhua news agency reported that police have opened an investigation into RYB Xintiandi, a private kindergarten in Beijing, after numerous parents accused the school of drugging and molesting their children. Beijing’s education authority confirmed the police investigation in a statement.

According to one parent – in a video posted on Weibo — China’s equivalent of Twitter — at least eight parents told police that their young children had been drugged and molested, while attending the school.

The video has been viewed millions of times.

The unidentified mother told reporters Thursday her 3-year-old daughter said she was injected with a brown liquid by a teacher, made to strip along with other kids before being “examined” by a naked adult male stranger.

She said she and other parents allegedly found multiple needle marks on their children’s bodies, adding that the kindergarten and the police had not allowed them to review videos from the school’s surveillance cameras.

“My child said the teacher told them it was a secret and they were not supposed to tell anyone else including parents,” the mother said. “She now bursts into screaming at night, saying: I’m not sick, why do I have to get a shot?”

The Xinhua state news agency reports that Beijing police have performed forensic tests and obtained surveillance camera footage from the kindergarten.

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SOURCE: CNN, Steven Jiang