Young people across several Chinese provinces say they suffered beatings, abduction and sexual abuse inside a network of “military-style discipline schools” run by, or linked to, a former air force veteran named Li Zheng.
A BBC investigation gathered testimony from 23 former students. They describe brutal punishments, forced military drills and extreme physical training. Several allege sexual assault. One former student says an instructor raped her. Thirteen say staff abducted them with their parents’ consent after posing as police or government officials.
Baobao, now 19, spent six months at Lizheng Quality Education School in rural Hunan when she was 14. Her parents sent her there for skipping classes. She says staff locked the gates, barred students from leaving and imposed constant surveillance.
She recalls military drills, long hours of marching and punishments for minor mistakes. “Every moment was agony,” she says. Instructors beat students with pipes so hard that some could not sit or sleep. She says one staff member touched her “sensitive areas” during an invasive body search.
She considered killing herself. “One girl attempted it. Instead of taking her to hospital, they tried to treat her themselves,” she says.
The school still operates under a new name, Quality Education for Teenagers, with around 300 students aged eight to 18. Undercover footage from earlier this year shows barred staircases, locked gates and CCTV cameras monitoring dormitories where children dress and shower.
A staff member told an undercover researcher that parents should not inform their children before enrolment. He described the school’s “pick-up method” as a “white lie”. Instructors sometimes pose as officials from an “internet regulator”. If the teenager resists, several instructors “restrain and carry” the child to a waiting vehicle.
Zhang Enxu, now 20, says three men seized her during a visit home at age 19. The men claimed to be police investigating fraud. Her parents watched as she was dragged into a car. They believed the school would “fix” her behaviour after disputes over her gender identity.
She was taken to Shengbo Youth Psychological Growth Training School – another institution linked to associates of Li Zheng. She says instructors beat her until she lost partial hearing in one ear. Later, she says an instructor raped her in her dormitory.
Her parents had paid 65,800 yuan for six months. Staff filmed her “counselling sessions” and sent the videos to her family. In the videos, counsellors tell her to “be a happy boy”, ignoring her identity as a transgender woman.
The network around Li Zheng spans at least ten schools across four provinces. Former staff describe a profitable business that markets itself to parents worried about internet addiction, dating, disobedience, depression or gender identity.
One senior instructor at a new Fujian school said the “profits are huge”. He suggested annual fees of at least $25,000 if the model expanded to Hong Kong. Former employees told undercover researchers that the old network “was on the brink of collapse” after recent scandals, but new schools continue to open.
Several institutions linked to Li Zheng have faced scrutiny. Local authorities detained an instructor in 2019 for beating students with water pipes. The Lizheng school received an order to stop taking students after a suicide in 2020, though operations continued under a different name.
Former volunteers who monitor the schools say administrators often rename institutions or move students between sites to avoid inspections. Some centres are not registered as schools, which makes oversight weak and fragmented between local agencies.
The Chinese Embassy in London said all institutions must follow national regulations and protect minors. It did not comment on individual cases.
Baobao says she now understands that her mother “believed the slogans” the school used to promise discipline and transformation. But she still struggles to accept the decision. She left formal education after her release. “It makes me terribly sad,” she says. “I might have gone to university.”
Enxu escaped after friends noticed she had vanished and alerted police. She wrote detailed letters from inside the school. Friends smuggled them out and posted them online, triggering public pressure. Authorities shut the school twelve days after removing her, but they did not acknowledge the abuse allegations.
Both young women now campaign for the closure of all such institutions. They collect video evidence from inside the centres and pressure schools to release detained students.
“These schools are scams,” Baobao says. “Violence creates more violence. The entire model is flawed. They should not exist.”
