A series of photographs of a little boy physically abused by his adoptive mother in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, has gone viral on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter. Although Nanjing police quickly responded to the case and detained the 9-year-old's adoptive mother, the case has raised public concern over the protection of minors.

According to a Beijing Youth Legal Assistant and Research Center report, biological parents were responsible for 75 percent of the 697 cases of domestic violence against minors that the media exposed between 2008 and 2013, with adoptive parents being responsible for 10 percent. The report also says many social organizations such as residents' committees failed to fulfill their responsibility of protecting children by not reporting such cases to police. And though non-violent guardians or other family members reported 32 percent of such cases to police, they did so only after the children had suffered severe harm.

Many parents in China still beat up their children because they don't see it as a violation of law. According to traditional Chinese belief, the family is a hierarchical organization in which parents and children don't have equal status. Parents have much more rights over their children than the other way round. For centuries, Chinese society has treated children as the "property" of their parents, not independent individuals. As such, children dare not defy their parents. Given these facts, people consider parents thrashing their children as a private, familial, affair.