RYB Education

Some kindergartens under RYB Education has been reported to abuse toddlers. The first reported incident occurred in December 2015 in Tiexi District, Siping City, Jilin Province, China, where the RYB kindergarten was reported to abuse about 30 toddlers with needle stabbing. The kindergarten director claimed that since the kindergarten was monitored over CCTV, the teachers did not have chances to abuse the children. However, this kindergarten was closed by the Bureau of Education of Tiexi District, and 5 teachers were detained by the police. In 2016, four of the teachers were sentenced to two years and ten months' imprisonment for guardianship abuse. The prosecution accused the defendants of stabbing several children with sewing needles on their heads, limbs, buttocks, and legs, deliberately avoiding the CCTV, and threatening the children with punishment. These four defendants claimed they were not guilty, and they all lodged appeals. In December 2016, Intermediate People's Court of Siping, Jilin dismissed the appeals and upheld the original verdicts.[13][14][15]

In April 2017, a video about the kindergarten circulated on the internet, showing kindergarten teacher hustling and kicking the children in their charge. That month, RYB Education established emergency group to track the incident, and said that it had exposed some problems on management that should be concentrated on and should be dealt by law.[13][16] In November, 2017, more than ten parents of children at the Beijing school reported that their children in a class at RYB Education Xintiandi Kindergarten in Guanzhuang, Chaoyang District, Beijing were needle-abused and were given white pills of unknown ingredients, and provided a number of photos allegedly showed toddlers' pinholes.[17][18][19][20][21] The Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau Chaoyang Branch investigated. After the incident was reported on 23 November by the Beijing News,[22] other media scrambled to report. Dozens of parents who wanted to know about the situation tried to meet with the registrar, asking to watch the kindergarten's surveillance video, but were stopped by the security guard.[23][24]

On 25 November, the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau declared that one kindergarten teacher was detained for toddler abuse, and one parent was arrested for making up rumours.[25][26] On 28 November, the Bureau sent a post on Sina Weibo that stated that nobody had sexually assaulted toddlers.[27] The post also claimed that "feeding drugs" and "sexual assault" were rumours made up by the two parents.[28][29]