13-Year-Old Girl Commits Suicide Attempting to Help Father

From Sina Weibo:

@人民日报 [The People’s Daily]: #13-Year-Old Girl Jumps Off Building Trying to Help Father Seek Unpaid Wages# Unfortunately Dies — According to netizen @叶枫滴枫叶, this afternoon, when a Sichuan migrant worker went to a construction site in Hebei province Jizhou city to demand his unpaid wages, his 13-year-old daughter in an attempt to help her father jumped from the 16th floor of a high-rise building. At around 4pm, hospital workers said emergency rescue efforts will still underway. At around 5pm, relatives said the girl had died. According to reports, the girl’s name was Yuan Meng, and was a second year junior high school student. http://t.cn/RZOpE5x

Comments from Sina Weibo:

额乐个去：

Please expose the name of this construction site and the construction company’s name.

周成阳是董事长：

I lack the strength to say anything. Rest in peace, little girl.

霞多丽的秘密：

Those people who are behind in paying migrant workers’ wages, where is your conscience…?

吃多了想吐：

It has already come to the point where migrant workers can only sacrifice their lives in order to get any attention, in order to make a single headline! The tragedy of our nation!

人民日报：

#13-Year-Old Girl Jumps Off Building Trying to Help Father Seek Unpaid Wages# Migrant Worker: We’ve Been Demanding Our Unpaid Wages For a Long Time, They Refuse to Pay — “We started working here in 2012, but our wages have yet to be paid, and we’ve already been demanding them for a very long time.” A migrant worker claims both the developer and construction contractor refuse to pay, that the migrant workers have also already sought help from government departments, but without any success throughout it all, they had no choice but to come to the construction site to demand their unpaid wages. “Nobody knows when Young Meng and her grandmother went up the building.”

夏天增：

This father is inhuman, gambling with his child’s life. How innocent the child is.

小-空-气：

Today, civil servants got a raise, their rights and benefits always so safeguarded/guaranteed. Today, migrant workers paid to demand their unpaid wages in blood. Why is it that even their own blood and sweat money cannot be safeguarded/guaranteed?

猫猫飞吻鱼鱼：

The People’s Daily is becoming more and more real.

[Note: As a state newspaper, The People’s Daily is widely viewed (and ridiculed) by Chinese netizens as a government mouthpiece often filled with propaganda.]

小哥骑骆驼：

This country has no dream. May you realize your dreams in your next left.

[Note: The second sentence also involves a pun on the girl’s name, Yuan Meng.]

肖郎平：

First, being in arrears on wages must be severely punished, with punishments implemented [legislated] for [employers] owing wages; second, it must be investigated to determine if the parent incited the child [to do/threaten this], because if so, they must be stripped of their parental guardianship, and prosecuted.

From NetEase:

Hebei 13-Year-Old Girl Jumps Off Building to Help Father Seek Unpaid Wages, Unfortunately Dies

The Beijing News report — Today (January 19th) around 1pm, at a newly constructed building in Hebei province Jizhou city, in an attempt to help her father get his unpaid wages, a 13-year-old girl jumped from the 16th floor, and afterward was taken to the Jizhou City Hospital. At around 5pm, relatives said the girl had passed away.

According to eyewitnesses at the scene, at noon today, migrant workers came to the Jizhou city Kailongyujing construction site to demand unpaid wages. Someone noticed a girl and an elderly person climbing onto the 16th floor of a high-rise building and immediately called the police. Firefighters arrived at the scene soon afterward, and inflated an air cushion on the roof of the ground-level shops.

A migrant worker who was also seeking unpaid wages at the scene says the little girl was their labor contractor’s daughter Young Meng (pseudonym), was 13 years old this year, and in junior high. She may have seen her father’s difficulties in demanding their unpaid wages and thus climbed onto the building with her grandmother, hoping to help her father successfully demand the unpaid wages owed to the workers.

Photos from the scene show a girl lying on the ground next to the air cushion on the roof of the ground-level shops, with blood visible on her head, as firefighters and paramedics working around her.

Migrant worker Mr. Ran says none of the workers knew when Young Meng and her grandmother had climbed up the high-rise, thought they were only trying to scare the property developer, and never expected that she would really jump. Mr. Ran says the grandmother went into shock after being brought down and learning that her granddaughter had jumped, and is currently still receiving emergency care.

“We started working here in 2012, but our wages have yet to be paid, and we’ve already been demanding them for a very long time.” A migrant worker told this Beijing News reporter that both the developer and construction contractor refuse to pay, that the migrant workers have also already sought help from government departments, but without any success throughout it all, they had no choice but to come to the construction site to demand their unpaid wages. “Nobody knows when Young Meng and her grandmother went up the building.”

At around 4pm, Jizhou City Hospital Emergency Room staff said rescue efforts were still underway. At around 5pm, relatives said the girl had died.

Comments from NetEase:

网易山东省枣庄市网友 ip：112.239.*.*

Behind the high-rise is a shadow, beneath the neon lights is blood.

1933569945 [网易上海市手机网友]：

Child, how can you be so stupid/foolish?! You are priceless to your parents.

网易福建省手机网友 ip：27.150.*.*

Investigate the relevant departments and government leaders, investigate them thoroughly.

网易云南省昆明市网友 [盗用你爹的ID]：

That expert who said the “Revival of the Chinese Nation” is at 60-some percent should come out and walk around.

[Note: The “Revival of the Chinese Nation” figure refers to an index created by Yang Yiyong, director of the Institute of Social Development Research at the Academy of Macroeconomic Research under China’s National Development and Reform Commission. It attempts to quantify China’s progress towards becoming a first-world nation through statistical data such as China’s Gross National Income. In 2007, the figure was at 46%. Chinese netizens were amused when it was updated to 62% in 2012, becoming a popular internet meme at the time, as alluded to in at least three chinaSMACK translations that year.]

13735639212 [网易北京市手机网友]： (responding to above)

I guarantee I won’t beat you [the expert] to death.

gringoirer [网易四川省网友]：

Little girl, rest in peace!

bnbhym [网易四川省攀枝花市网友]：

Truly heartbreaking!

巫山游云 [脑洞全开]：

Hope [CCTV] comes to interview them and asks “are you happy?“

西交大 [网易陕西省西安市手机网友]：

The child was too naive!

无人相伴 [喵星人]：

I grieve for your misfortunes!

[Note: This is the first half of Lu Xun‘s famous quote “哀其不幸，怒其不争” expressing his sympathies and sorrows with the misfortunes that befall certain people but angry and frustrated with their failure to resist or fight for change, often associated with his general view on the plight of the Chinese people/nation.]