China:Officials Alter Child Rape to be Prostitution

Four government and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials who gang-raped a 12 year old school girl in a small town in Shaanxi province in October 2011, have been charged with ‘prostituting an underage girl'. The local police have claimed that as the defendants had sexual intercourse with the girl in both September and early October respectively, the act does not fall under the definition of ‘gang-rape' (even though the girl had been forced into sex).
In China, the penalty for child rape ranges between ten years imprisonment to the death sentence, while underage prostitution is punished by just three to ten years imprisonment and in some cases having sex with underage girls is not considered a crime.
Public outcry
The Shaanxi case is not the first time that Chinese government officials have saved themselves from harsh legal punishments by ‘reclassifying' their crime. In 2009 alone, a large number government officials from Guizhou, Fujiang, Zhejiang and Sichuan [zh] all applied the same legal tactics to defend their own child rape cases.
Since 2008, People's Representatives have been [zh] calling for the replacement of the criminal law on underage prostitution with child rape. Earlier this year, representatives from the All China Women Federation put forward a joint-signature campaign during the People's Congress. However, their appeal has not been taken seriously. Those who are against the law amendment have not even responded publicly to the issue.
University Professor Xiao Xuehui has continued to push for the abolition of the underage prostitution law in a public forum organized by Netease after the Shaanxi case. This excerpt is from a transcript of her talk via China Elections [zh]:

嫖宿幼女罪恐怕是本朝一大发明。这个罪名含有一个混帐前提：幼女心智成熟、有完全行为能力。逻辑的结论就是：把受到性侵犯的幼女贴上“卖淫女”标签。这是以国家法律之名对受害幼女进行的再次伤害。

‘Underage prostitution' is another invention of this imperial dynasty. The ridicule premise of this crime is that the underage girl is a mature individual capable of making her own choice free from manipulation. The conclusion is to put a ‘prostitution label' onto the victim of sexual crime. This is a double victimization of child victim under the name of Chinese law.

值得注意的是，无论此次陕西案件，还是之前出现在贵州、四川、福建的若干起以这个罪名定案的案件，犯罪人都是公职人员：法 官、国税局长、校长、镇长等等。这个罪名的设立似乎在实践中呈现出跟“利益逢官递增”规律相对应的规律：罪名逢官递减。恐怕很难避免人们对立法意图的猜 测。

We should pay attention to the fact that all the people who have been charged under this criminal law have been government officials: a judge, the head of a Tax Bureau, a school principal, a town mayor, etc. The latest case in Shaanxi and the previous cases in Guizhou, Sichuan and Fujian are all similar. The purpose of the law seems to serve the purpose of the protection of government officials' interests by reducing their responsibility in a crime. And it is quite a logical conclusion amongst common people.

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