New guideline to protect minors puts the heat on tutors, officials
Print Edition
China yesterday pledged to mete out harsher punishment for government workers and teachers who sexually assault the underage, especially those who are tasked with protecting and educating them.
The move follows a spate of sexual assaults on minors, including several involving teachers and their students that shocked the country,
Earlier this month, a 62-year-old primary school teacher in east China’s Jiangxi Province was sentenced to 14 years in jail for molesting seven second-grade girls in class and infecting six of them with STDs.
In June, a school principal was sentenced to 18 years in jail for raping and molesting girls in Qianshan County in east China’s Anhui Province.
Officials, family members and people close to the victims, including teachers, doctors and nannies, will be handed heavier sentences, according to a joint communique released by the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Justice.
“The guideline embodies the principle of ‘maximum protection’ for the victims and ‘minimum tolerance’ for the offenders,” SPC spokesman Sun Jungong told a press conference in Beijing yesterday.
“Though the number of sexual offenses is not high in terms of criminal cases, they have serious physical and mental effects on minors, an extremely adverse impact in society, and arouse strong public discontent,” Sun said.
The document aims to guide law enforcement authorities in handling such cases.
In some cases, suspects have claimed they did not know the victim’s age or insisted they never beat or forced them.
But the guideline states that suspects having sex with girls under the age of 12, under any condition, will be identified as “having known” the girl’s age. It also says they “should know” if girls are under the age of 14 by their looks and behavior.
It was widely reported that men lured young girls to have sex by offering them money or gifts. The guideline says suspects will nevertheless be charged with rape.
Some of them lured students to their office or to the campus with promises to help them with their homework, but instead fondled or raped them. In some cases, the girls never realized they were being abused until their parents found it out.
People who rape underage girls on campus or in public places, including swimming pools and amusement parks, will be convicted of raping in public. They will receive jail terms of at least 10 years.
For offenders who get a suspended sentence, the courts can prohibit them from engaging in jobs or activities involving minors and entering primary and middle schools, kindergartens, or other venues where minors gather during their probation period.
Any institutions involved, schools for example, may be liable for compensation to victims or their families.
Harsher sentences await those for offenses involving children in rural areas whose parents work away from home, those with serious disabilities or, cases of violence, pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease.
To protect victims’ privacy, investigators will question victims at their home or other places where they feel psychologically safe. Repeated questioning should be avoided and officers should wear plain clothes when visiting victims’s home or schools.
Some of the controversial cases seemed to have been taken into consideration while drafting the guideline, like death penalty for people forcing young girls into prostitution.
In a sensational case in Youngzhou City, Hunan Province, an 11-year-old girl was forced to have sex more than 100 times over a three-month period in 2006, during which she was repeatedly beaten up and raped.
A relative of her mother found her at a nightclub and rescued her. Two of the girl’s kidnappers were sentenced to death.
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