Arrests made after video of chained woman emerges

Police in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, have detained three people suspected of illegally detaining and trafficking a woman after video went viral on China's social media of a mother-of-eight confined by an iron chain around her neck.

An official statement issued Thursday night said the woman's husband, surnamed Dong, had been detained.

In the video, the woman, surnamed Xiao (now surnamed Yang), is wearing thin clothes and has poor-quality food and is shackled by a chain that confines her to a dilapidated hut.

Two other suspects, a woman surnamed Sang and her 67-year-old husband, were detained for alleged human trafficking.

The confinement allegedly began after a neighboring villager took Xiao to Jiangsu for treatment for abnormal speech and behavior in the late 1990s and promised her mother she would find her a good husband.

However, the two split up in Jiangsu's Donghai county and the woman's family lost touch with her, according to a notice previously issued by local police.

Xiao and Dong subsequently married in 1998.

Villagers and relatives claimed Xiao beat her children and elderly people during bouts of mental illness, causing her to need to be confined.

The authorities said the fate of Xiao and Dong's children is yet to be decided.