{"id":46764,"date":"2015-04-26T00:43:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-26T00:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=46764 "},"modified":"2015-04-26T00:43:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-26T00:43:00","slug":"46764-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=46764","title":{"rendered":"China Child Abuse Cases Spark Further Calls For Legal Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>2015-04-24 &nbsp; &nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2015\/17\/2015425image(32).jpg\" alt=\"2015425image(32).jpg (305&#215;176)\" \/><br \/><div><\/div><div>Chinese mothers hold their children at a kindergarten in Jiangsu province, Oct. 27, 2012.<\/div><div>ImagineChina<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>China&#8217;s tightly controlled media reported on more than 400 cases of child sexual abuse last year, sparking renewed calls for change in a law that campaigners say waters down some offenses, a rights group reported.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>The Hubei-based Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch group compiled 425 media reports of sexual abuse and attacks on children and minors in 2014, in a report which it hopes will highlight a lack of government focus on the problem.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;The sexual abuse of minors is an abuse of basic human rights, and we have a responsibility to express our concern,&#8221; Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch founder Liu Feiyue told RFA in a recent interview.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>He said that a majority of the abusers in reported cases were the victim&#8217;s teacher, and called for a tougher safeguarding policy in the nation&#8217;s schools.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;The government has a duty to protect young children, especially left-behind children in rural areas, because the people who are abusing them are usually their teachers,&#8221; Liu said in a reference to children whose parents seek work in other cities, leaving them in the care of older relatives or friends.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&#8220;What are they doing to supervise schools? The government has a duty to protect the victims of sexual abuse and to prevent the sexual abuse of children,&#8221; Liu said, adding that the cases reported in the media are likely just the tip of the iceberg.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>Calls for repeal<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>Campaigners have already repeatedly called on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to repeal a 1997 law which they say waters down the offense of rape.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>Before 1997, sex with a person under 14 was deemed to be rape, regardless of whether or not consent was given, as children of that age were deemed incapable of giving consent.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>But the introduction of the Sex Crimes Against Girls Law in 1997 led to the separate treatment of sexual contact with a minor from the existing rape law.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>Defendants can plead ignorance of a child&#8217;s age, and crimes under the law carry a maximum penalty of 15 years, compared with a maximum penalty of death under pre-existing rape legislation.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&#8220;Now that we have this concept of &#8216;sex with girls,&#8217; a lot of child abuse cases are being categorised under it, which is overly lenient towards the perpetrators,&#8221; Liu said.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>Writer Li Hongyu, who has also campaigned for the law to be revoked, said signature campaigns have so far yielded no response, however.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&#8220;Any sexual relations with a person under 14 constitute rape,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;There is no such thing as &#8216;sex with girls&#8217;.&#8221;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><\/div><div><\/div><div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/cases-04242015110635.html\">For detail please visit here<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;The Hubei-based Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch group compiled 425 media reports of sexual abuse and attacks on children and minors in 2014, in a report which it hopes will highlight a lack of government focus on the problem.&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}