Baobao’s heart still beats faster when she smells the earth after the morning rain.
It refers to her military training behind closed gates – and to the constant fear that marked her every day at the Lizheng School of Quality Education. For six months, at the age of 14, she struggled to leave the red-and-white building in a remote Chinese village. There, instructors tried to “correct” young people whose families considered them rebellious or troubled.
Students who disobeyed were beaten so severely that they couldn’t sleep on their backs or sit up all day, she says.
“Every moment was painful,” Baobao says. Now 19 and speaking under a pseudonym because including Baobao, they say they were sexually abused or harassed by instructors.
Undercover filming has exposed officers posing as authorities to forcibly transfer youths to their institutions.
Thirteen students claim they were abducted with parental consent. This was done by officers posing as police officers or officials.
The stories – from interviews with the BBC World Service, statements gathered by activists, police reports and state media – involve five schools. They are part of a network of at least 10 schools run or closely linked by a military veteran named Li Zheng.
The centres are part of a fast-growing industry. She promises worried parents that military-type disciplinary measures will target disobedient youths by following the rules.
‘Deeply offensive’ body search
Baobao says her mother took her to Lizheng Quality Education School in Hunan province when the girl started skipping classes and there were arguments that worsened their already complicated relationship.
Her mother left while the girl was being shown around the school, she says, and then she realised she couldn’t go: ‘They said if I behaved well, I could go out’.
Baobao initially tried to beat the instructors with her legs and fists, but decided to acquiesce when they tried to tie the girl up with their shoelaces. She was later searched and described as having been sexually assaulted. “I found it very offensive… she touched all my sensitive places.”
The girl says her mother paid about 40,000 yuan ($5,700) for six showers.
A staff member told her it would take at least six months for the teenager’s behaviour to improve, but there was a “three-year guarantee”: she could send him back, paying only for food and accommodation, if he returned to his old habits.
She was told not to tell him about the new school. “When we organise meetings, we tell innocent lies,” the staff member said.
She explained that instructors posing as officials from the “internet regulator” would say they needed his help with an investigation and take him to the centre. “If that fails, a few instructors will just tie him up and take him to the car,” she said.
Another former student, Zhang Enxu, now 20, said she had a similar experience when she was taken to and said she returned home to visit her grandmother’s grave with her family – and that’s when three men who pretended to be police officers showed up. They claimed her details had been used in a scam.
“They forced me into the car. My parents stood next to me while they took me away,” she says.
She was taken to the Shenbo School of Psychological Youth Development in Hunan. There, she says, she was beaten and eventually lost hearing in one ear before being raped.
In a secret video from the school Baobao attended, a staff member says children are not beaten: “We change young people’s behaviour through military training and counselling.”
But Baobao and Enxu describe a very different experience.
“Corporal punishment is everywhere,” Baobao says. – If your dance routines or their push-ups can start with a thousand repetitions.
She also says she was attacked in her dorm by an instructor while on night duty, “He grabbed my hair and pulled me to the floor and then sexually assaulted me.”
Baobao says she thought about attempting suicide but realised she would be caught hours before her death.
She says one of her classmates did attempt suicide. But instead of taking her to the hospital, the instructors themselves tried to wash her stomach.
Both Baobao and Enxiu describe counselling sessions in which workers showed little understanding.
Enxiu’s sessions were videotaped for her parents, who she says paid 65,800 yuan (US$9,300) over six months. “Be a happy, healthy, positive boy. Okay?” role in parents’ decisions. Especially among middle-class urban families. This encourages them to send their children to disciplinary schools, says Dr Ihen Rao, an anthropologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
He has studied internet addiction centres for young people in China and says a lack of support in the school system, anxiety and family conflict can make parents “feel they have no other choice”.
Baobao’s mother declined to comment. Her daughter says she can now understand both sides: I think she was brainwashed by the slogans used to promote the school. She desperately wanted me to be more obedient… to be the daughter she always wanted.
Baobao managed to get out by having vision problems. Her mother simply said, “Let’s turn the page,” and the crime.
Police did not respond to the BBC’s requests for information on the case of Enxu and Mr Li. The local education authority also did not respond.
Author photo, Secret Footage
Mr Lee is relatively in private.
The BBC analysed his network and found it runs disciplinary schools in four provinces because of the complex set of registered companies
He set up his first centre in 2006 and has owned four different education companies at different times.
The website of one of his organisations says he is a graduate of the Air Force Academy in southern China and has worked as “director of education” and “senior psychological consultant” in several schools since 2007.
On local television in Hunan province, he once spoke about educating young people with “love and patience”.
Chinese authorities have intervened before after allegations of online schools.
Instructor Li Zheng was detained by police in 2019 at another school after allegations that he beat students with water pipes.
Also, according to Chinese media reports, the school Baobao attended was forced to stop teaching after he committed suicide. the industry is huge,” Li Yunfeng, director of counselling at the new school, told them. He outlined how the business model could work in Hong Kong, offering fees of at least US$25,000 per student per year.
He declined to reveal the name of the principal, but said he was a veteran.
However, he appeared to distance himself from the network, telling undercover researchers: “There have been some incidents. Parents filed a complaint, the group… though not officially disbanded, it was teetering on the brink of disintegration. That’s why I came out of it.”
Photo of the secret shoot
The BBC was unable to contact Li Zheng, Li Yunfeng and other schools and companies associated with Li Zheng and his partners for comment despite multiple attempts.
The official who led the tour of quality education for teenagers declined to comment. o tolerate, and adds that the state may not want to give it legitimacy through regulations or guidelines.
But, he adds, there is a “spectrum” of schools, some of which have psychotherapy for students and training for parents, or that discipline staff who use corporal punishment.
The Chinese Embassy in London said the government “attaches great importance to the lawful operation of educational institutions and the protection of minors”. It said all educational institutions “are obliged to abide by relevant laws and regulations”.
Sadness
Enxiu and her friend Wang want all disciplinary schools closed. They collect video evidence of abuse and abduction because they believe it is critical to police investigations, sometimes posting it online.
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Additional reporting by Alex Mattoli and Shanshan Cheng