For almost a month, the whole world has been speechless at the lockdown of many cities in China, such as the metropolis of Shanghai, whose 26 million inhabitants are locked down. Because of these draconian measures, a large part of the Chinese population is now exhausted.
This anger has also been compounded by some incidents, such as the recent story of a man who was pronounced dead and then taken alive from his body bag. This time, it was the plight of a homeless woman who was forced to live in a phone booth for nearly a month that caused an uproar on social media, Vice reports.
According to American media, the woman in question is a guest worker in her fifties. According to the announcement of a strict curfew in Shanghai would have made her decide to settle down with her dog in this confined space. She occasionally went out to walk her pet or air her blanket, living in deplorable conditions that came to light after a resident of the building across the street shared a series of photos detailing her ordeal on Chinese social media documented.
During the lockdown in Shanghai, a woman and a dog lived in a phone booth in Shanghai for a month. She was expelled by police on April 29, 2022. Now she has been found by reporters and she and her dog are safe.#shanghai #ChinaLockdown #China #COVID-19 #omicron pic.twitter.com/r2L74IN2KX
— Pillar Sen (@PillarVonSen) May 4, 2022
According to Vice, last week the police came in the middle of the night to evict the 50-year-old from her shelter, “at the same time throwing her things on the sidewalk and sealing the cubicle with tape”. According to state media China Youth Daily, the authorities offered her housing, an offer the woman declined.
“Zero Social Protection” policy
As the American media points out, this 50-year-old is one of the many immigrant workers living in China. After most of them lost their jobs when the lockdown was announced, many of them were forced to find makeshift housing because they could not pay rent.
These workers, who still make up a third of China’s workforce, face a lack of social protection and almost non-existent job security, Vice comments. The new wave of Covid-19 in China has therefore hit them harder than the rest of the population, leaving millions of them without wages.
“Many migrant workers live hand-to-mouth, relying on their employers to provide them with shelter and food,” says Pun Ngai, a professor at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. “With most factories and shops closed, they are on their own.”