The pain of silence: Left-behind children, victims of school violence

（People's Daily Online）  08:22, May 29, 2013  

Edited and translated by Huang Jin, People's Daily Online

A school violence case occurred in Yanchi Primary School in Shimen county in Changde, Hunan on May 7, 2013. Lanlan, a girl of sixth grade, was hurt severely by three other girls, which results in the rupture of her spleen. In fact, before the incident, Lanlan had suffered school violence for two years.

"We beat her just for fun."

Lanlan is always abused by other students because of her introvert personality and poor school record. Facing the violence, she often chose to remain silent. "Everyone enjoys bullying her, because she is good tempered and doesn't resist at all. We hit her just for fun," said Qin Yin, one of the attackers.

During the investigation, a lot of students acknowledged that they suffered violence in school. Parents told the reporter that more than 10 students quit school because of violence.

"Attackers and victims are both the left-behind children."

"Both attackers and victims are the left-behind children," said Huang Guodong, the principal of Yanchi primary school. "They are raised by the grandparents while the parents are absent for work."

Tang Juan is the main attacker of Lanlan. When was asked why she became so violent, she recalled that once she reported a violence case to the teacher, and later she was hardly punished by the violent students. Then she decided to be strong to protect herself.

Both the attackers and victims kept silence about what happened. Parents and school started to know the whole story seven days after Lanlan got injured.