Men in child prostitute case face rape trial
Print Edition
Two men in a city of the southwestern Sichuan Province alleged to have paid for sex with a 13-year-old girl are to be tried for rape, Chengdu Business News reported.
This is the first case after the Supreme People’s Court announced earlier that it backed a change in how child prostitutes are viewed in a move intended to provide better protection for minors.
Previously, most suspects were charged with having sex with underage prostitutes and if convicted faced a jail term of between five and 15 years.
Defendants found guilty of rape can face the death penalty.
Prosecutors in Qionglai City said that the girl, identified as Xiao Lan, was duped into prostitution and had no chance of escaping her pimps as they kept her under strict supervision.
The accused men, both in their 40s, had known her age, said prosecutors.
Therefore, the men should be charged with rape, said prosecutors.
Last month, the Supreme People’s Court urged the abolition of an article in the Chinese Criminal Law relating to prostitutes under the age of 14.
It is unfair to differentiate between young girls on the basis of whether or not they are prostitutes, said Li Hong, deputy dean of the Law School at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The local court in Qionglai, which received the prosecution on Thursday, did not set a trial date.
Xiao Lan said a classmate, identified as Xiao Hui, told her that she had found a job and asked Xiao Lan to go with her on July 18 last year.
She was introduced to an 18-year-old, surnamed Yang, who had contracted venereal disease while working as a call girl.
Her boyfriend, surnamed Gong, is said to have recruited girls online to work as prostitutes to pay for treatment for Yang, the newspaper reported
Xiao Lan said she had thought she just needed to accompany other people for drinks.
But on July 19 and 22 she had sex with two men. They each paid Yang 800 yuan (US$132), the newspaper reported.
“Xiao Hui did it and I also did it,” Xiao Lan said, “I did everything they told me to do.”
She said she told the men that she was only 13 years old.
Xiao Lan said that one of the men bought new clothes for her.
Her father, who is divorced from Xiao Lan’s mother and raised his daughter alone, reported her missing to police.
Last August, police detained Gong, Yang and two middle-aged men.
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