The suicide of a teenager in China whose sexual harassment case was dismissed has triggered a bout of national soul-searching over her treatment and anger at onlookers who encouraged her to jump off a building.
Li Yiyi, 19, died last week after throwing herself from the eighth floor of a department store in Qingyang, a city in Gansu Province, following previous suicide attempts, police said.
A public outcry erupted after videos of the scene circulated online and reports that some bystanders had jeered her and urged the young woman to “jump quickly,” while firefighters tried to save her.
The police on Monday said they had detained two people who had booed and started investigations into six others for verbally abusive online posts about Li.
“The world is getting more and more indifferent. I’m scared. Just how mentally defected are those people who booed her to jump?” questioned one user on a Chinese microblogging site.
The case has put a new spotlight on the struggle among Chinese women to get legal help in sexual abuse allegations.
The teenager had been upset because prosecutors cleared a high school teacher whom she had accused of forcibly kissing her and trying take her clothes off in September 2016.
Li and her father had repeatedly sought charges against the teacher, but local prosecutors decided not to try him, declaring that his behavior was a “slight” offense that did not constitute a crime.
She appealed to a higher prosecutor, who also rejected her case.
The teacher was briefly detained, but kept his job.
“She fought for two years. Except for her father, no one — including teachers, the school, the court and the prosecutor — cared about her pain. Only those firefighters kept trying to save her,” a microblog user wrote.
Sexual harassment cases have rocked Chinese university campuses in the past few months, fueling a #MeToo movement that has been more low-key than in other countries due to censorship by the authorities.
There is no legal definition of sexual harassment in China and no national regulations on how to handle sexual assault cases in schools and workplaces.
Very few sexual assault cases are prosecuted due to lack of evidence, and a lack of respect for women has contributed to such cases not being taken seriously in China, said Guo Jianmei (郭建梅), a women’s rights lawyer in Beijing.
“Her case is a typical pattern where her helplessness and loneliness after long-term pressure sent her toward a death path,” Guo said.
“It happens a lot, and it is hidden harassment, which is hard to get convicted as there is no obvious violence in the action,” she said.
“She was actually very brave as she went to the police and talked about it. Most girls just cry in private and then become depressed,” Guo said.
A 26-year-old Chinese graduate student drew social media praise last month after she tried to sue police for dismissing her rape report — it was believed to be the first such attempt to challenge the authorities on a sexual assault allegation.
The burden of proof is high for alleged victims, lawyers said.
In a survey of more than 6,500 Chinese students, conducted by the Guangzhou Gender and Sexuality Education Centre last year, 70 percent reported having been sexually harassed and more than 40 percent said the cases took place in public areas on campus.
However, only 4 percent of women and even fewer men reported campus sexual abuse cases to police, a 2015 Sina.com survey said.
Li had attempted to kill herself four other times before taking her own life, police said, adding that the teacher was detained for 10 days on a minor offense.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in