International Law

Sexual Harassment Case in Chengdu

By Stan

According to Reuters (h/t Shanghaiist):

A Chinese man has been given five months in detention for kissing a female colleague against her will, a local newspaper said on Wednesday, the first time punishment has been meted out under a new sexual harassment law.

The man, a manager surnamed Liu, invited one of his new female staff into his office in southwestern China’s Sichuan province to ‘discuss work matters’, but then told her he wanted to be her boyfriend, the Beijing News said, citing a local newspaper.

When the women turned Liu down, he turned off the lights, held her by the neck and kissed her, the report said.

‘Miss Chen screamed out and fought back. Colleagues next door heard her and dialed (the police),’ the newspaper said.

Liu was found guilty of ‘using force to act indecently towards a woman’, it added.

Haven’t read the original article yet, or the law. Maybe I won’t bother. This is not exactly my area of expertise (either as lawyer or perpetrator). However, it does bear mentioning that in many countries, the behavior cited above would be punishable as a battery, or perhaps assault and battery - criminal and civil liabilities.

Why does a sexual harassment law cover this sort of behavior? In my opinion, it’s not necessary, and the law should apply to things like workplace environment issues and the like. Putting battery in there is weird. Same reason why I don’t like hate crime laws, but that’s for another post . . .

I will say, however, that I think there is a LOT of sexual harassment going on in workplaces that goes unreported for a variety of reasons. Nice to see some action on this, maybe it will raise the profile of the problem in general.

Full post as published by China Hearsay on July 16, 2008 (boomark / email).