Protection for rural kids needed from sex abuse

An 11-year-old girl in Biyang, Central China's Henan province, has reportedly been sexually abused by a member of staff at her primary school for at least two years and is now five months pregnant. Gmw.cn comments:

The case in Henan is only one of hundreds of child sex abuse cases. According to data from Girls' Protection, a domestic foundation with official background especially established to protect children from sexual abuse, of the 340 child sex abuse cases reported in 2015, 96 were committed by school masters or teachers. There is likely to be at least a similar number of unreported cases.

Worse, the sexual abuse of children by their teachers is more deeply hidden and might persist for a long time unless the families of the victims find out about it.

The majority of the victims are so-called "left-behind" children. Those children who live in rural regions while their parents work in cities far away from home. "Left-behind" children live in relatively closed circles, while their parents who live far away from home cannot provide the protection they need, which makes them vulnerable.

All these facts call for stricter protection of "left-behind children". What is needed is not only to punish the criminals, but also to better educate the children and have strict selection procedures for rural primary school staff, so as to build fences to better protect these vulnerable youngsters.