Teacher held over sex assaults on 8 girls
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, July 15, 2014
A teacher at a primary school in a remote village in Yunnan Province has been detained over sexual assaults on eight girls aged between 5 and 11.
The abuse was uncovered after the parents of one girl called police on July 5, after discovering that their daughter had been sexually assaulted, reported thepaper.cn.
Medical reports confirmed that eight girls had been sexually abused, it said.
Lannigou Primary School, in Wuliping Village, Xuanwei City, is in a remote mountainous area reached by rough paths.
The school has only 41 students, 13 of whom are girls, and two teachers — the suspect, surnamed Wu, who teaches second and third graders, and Zhu Xunben, who teaches preschoolers and first graders.
Wu lived in the school during the week, while Zhu lives at his home nearby.
Wu would get girls to remove clothing and kiss them, one of his students told thepaper.cn.
"He would ask the girls to take off their trousers and kiss the most beautiful ones. He kissed them so hard that the girls would cry," the student said.
A third grader told how Wu usually sat beside her in the classroom. "He often touched our faces, backs and private parts," she said.
Girls were too shy to tell their parents about the abuse until police were alerted this month.
Villagers said Wu, in his 30s, is married and has a 6-year-old daughter. He had been teaching in the school for 18 months.
His colleague Zhu said he did not realize what was happening in the school when he went home at lunchtime.
He said students never told him about Wu's alleged actions. Zhu added that Wu was a loner.
Police said investigations into the case are continuing.
China has been shocked by a string of child abuse cases involving teachers in recent years.
Prosecutors across the country have stepped up their efforts against all crimes targeting children, especially sexual abuse cases.
Most recently, a court in east China's Anhui Province sentenced a primary school teacher to death on April 23 for raping and sexually assaulting students.
He was accused of raping five schoolgirls and assaulting six others, beginning in the second half of 2011.
The All-China Women's Federation called for severe punishment for sexual assaults on girls, following several similar cases.
Gao Shawei, head of the ACWF's rights and interests department, said improving legislation and policies to educate children about sexual assault would help protect minors.
She called for "methods that are appropriate to children" to let them know how to avoid sexual assaults.
The country charged a total of 8,069 people with offences related to the sexual abuse of children between 2010 to 2013, said the Supreme People's Procuratorate in May.
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