A man has been arrested after taking his pregnant 'wife' to hospital only for staff to claim the 'woman' was no older than 12.
The youngster, who has not been named, had been accompanied by the 40-year-old man and another woman who claimed to be her mother-in-law.
The three arrived at the Xuzhou City Central Hospital, in East China's Jiangsu Province, claiming that the girl was three months pregnant and that she needed a routine test to confirm that her foetus was healthy.
The husband and mother-in-law said the wife was 20 years old, but medics immediately alerted local authorities when they found the young patient to be more like a schoolgirl than a "woman".
Doctors who tried to question the girl were unable to get any answers from her, as she did not speak any Mandarin.
One of the staff said: "It's obvious she is just a child, and certainly not anywhere near 20 years old."
Their suspicion is also said to have angered the husband, who was quoted as saying: "I took her here to be examined - just do your job. Stop asking so many questions."
Arriving police officers found that the girl did not possess a Chinese ID and concluded that she was a foreign national from Southeast Asia, but her exact origins are still unclear.
Investigators suspect that she was abducted or bought as a foreign bride - the Chinese have a history of purchasing Vietnamese brides from across the country's southern border.
Further investigation is now under way to determine the facts.
In April, a disturbing video released by a charity showed a five-year-old ' child bride ' being married off to a boy.
She is seen dressed in a red Hindu bridal dress and is forced to walk around the fire with her child groom, an 11-year-old boy.
She’s crying loudly but a man forces her to complete the Hindu wedding ritual, which involves walking around the fire seven times.
Speaking at the time, child rights activist Kriti Bharti, 28, and founder of Saarthi Trust , a charity for the welfare of child brides and other vulnerable children said: "My heart goes out to these little children trapped in this tragedy."
The legal age for girls and boys to marry in India is 18 and 21 respectively but according to UNICEF India is home to a third of the world's total child brides.
The youngster, who has not been named, had been accompanied by the 40-year-old man and another woman who claimed to be her mother-in-law.
The husband and mother-in-law said the wife was 20 years old, but medics immediately alerted local authorities when they found the young patient to be more like a schoolgirl than a "woman".
Doctors who tried to question the girl were unable to get any answers from her, as she did not speak any Mandarin.
One of the staff said: "It's obvious she is just a child, and certainly not anywhere near 20 years old."
Their suspicion is also said to have angered the husband, who was quoted as saying: "I took her here to be examined - just do your job. Stop asking so many questions."
Arriving police officers found that the girl did not possess a Chinese ID and concluded that she was a foreign national from Southeast Asia, but her exact origins are still unclear.
Investigators suspect that she was abducted or bought as a foreign bride - the Chinese have a history of purchasing Vietnamese brides from across the country's southern border.
Further investigation is now under way to determine the facts.
In April, a disturbing video released by a charity showed a five-year-old ' child bride ' being married off to a boy.
She is seen dressed in a red Hindu bridal dress and is forced to walk around the fire with her child groom, an 11-year-old boy.
She’s crying loudly but a man forces her to complete the Hindu wedding ritual, which involves walking around the fire seven times.
Speaking at the time, child rights activist Kriti Bharti, 28, and founder of Saarthi Trust , a charity for the welfare of child brides and other vulnerable children said: "My heart goes out to these little children trapped in this tragedy."
The legal age for girls and boys to marry in India is 18 and 21 respectively but according to UNICEF India is home to a third of the world's total child brides.
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