Last week, a man from the northwestern Chinese city of Xi’an was caught on camera violently beating his wife in front of his young child. On Saturday, local police announced he would face just five days of administrative detention.

上周，一名来自西安（中国一个西北城市）的男子在他年幼的孩子面前暴打他的妻子。周六，当地警方宣布他将面临五天的行政拘留。

The sentence has sparked renewed debate on Chinese social media over the handling of domestic abuse cases. Many users argued the punishment was far too light for such an extreme act of violence.

这一判决在中国社交媒体上再次引发了关于处理家暴案件的辩论。许多网友认为，对于如此极端的暴力行为，处罚太轻了。

“Domestic abusers only get punished with five days’ detention, and then you wonder why Chinese women don’t want to get married or have babies?” read one highly upvoted comment under a related post on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social platform.

“家暴者只得到5天拘留的惩罚，你好好想想为什么中国女人不想结婚或生孩子？微博上的一篇相关帖子下，这样一条评论获得了很多支持。

Video footage showing the man, surnamed Wang, assaulting his wife in the couple’s living room first began circulating online during the middle of last week. In the video, Wang repeatedly beats the woman over the head, while his young child stands just feet away.

上周中旬，关于这名王姓男子在夫妻俩的客厅里殴打妻子的视频片段首次在网上流传。在视频中，王姓男子反复击打这名女子的头部，而他的孩子就站在旁边。

The clip, which appears to have been recorded by a home security device, quickly went viral on Chinese social media. A related hashtag had been viewed over 11 million times on Weibo at time of publication.

这段视频似乎是由一个家庭监控设备录制的，很快在中国社交媒体上疯传。一个相关的标签在发布时已经在微博上被浏览了超过1100万次。

Wang’s employer, a state-owned company in Xi’an, confirmed Saturday that it had fired him for violating party regulations.

王姓男子就职于西安一家国企，周六证实，单位因他违反党规而解雇了他。

Under China’s anti-domestic violence law, which went into effect in 2016, perpetrators of domestic abuse can be punished with up to 20 days of administrative detention. A harsher punishment can be imposed if the case is judged to be a criminal matter.

根据2016年生效的中国反家庭暴力法，家庭暴力的肇事者可被处以最高20天的行政拘留。如果该案件被判定为刑事案件，可以处以更严厉的惩罚。

However, experts say local authorities are often reluctant to impose more severe penalties in practice. In some localities, public security officials only hand out written warnings to perpetrators of domestic violence in around 10% of cases, according to Feng Yuan, a feminist scholar and activist.

然而，专家表示，地方政府通常不愿意在实践中实施更严厉的处罚。根据女权主义学者和活动家冯媛的说法，在一些地方，大约10%的案件中，公安局的官员只向家庭暴力的肇事者发出书面警告。