On October 25, a female college student in Zhengzhou, Henan Province told the media that her roommate was assaulted on her breasts by someone else in broad daylight.
On the evening of Oct. 23, Yinyin and her roommate were walking normally along the street when a man walked straight toward them, with the other man a bit wobbly and likely drunk.
The two tried to avoid it, but the other man reached right up and grabbed his roommate's breasts as he passed.
Faced with the other man's salty hands, Yum Yum didn't hold back, she pulled the man back and demanded a statement, but the man started to play a rascal, saying he hadn't done anything.
After the girl pointed out his shameless behavior, the man said he had apologized, so it's not good enough? Not the slightest hint of admitting fault.
YinYin then used her cell phone to take a picture of the other party's appearance, and put it in the circle of friends, but I did not expect a friend to recognize each other, from the other WeChat, the man is married and already have children.
After determining the identity of the other party, the girl chose to report to the police, the police according to the law to give the punishment of administrative detention for 15 days.
Yin Yin said her roommate, who had just reached adulthood and had been unwilling to communicate with others since the incident, was obviously very hurt, and even so, the molester only lost half a month of freedom.
On the night of Oct. 8, the molester was similarly seen at the West Lake Cultural Square in Hangzhou.
After dinner, Ms. Chen came to square dance on the square behind the West Lake as usual, and did not expect that while dancing, a hand touched Ms. Chen's back, from the spine all the way to the thighs, and by the way, also twisted the buttocks.
She rushed out to call for help, but the other party quickly fled the scene, Ms. Chen then asked for help from the security guards on the square, the security guards quickly found the suspect Li, was found by the security guards, Li was preparing to do to another woman.
The security guards then overpowered Li, and in the process the threatened man injured one of the guards in the nose.
Police sentenced Li to 20 days' administrative detention and a 200 yuan fine for public threats and assault.
With two molesters, one was detained for 15 days and the other for 20 days, isn't that too lenient a punishment?
According to Article 44 of the Law on Punishment for Public Security Administration, a person who molests another person under aggravating circumstances shall be sentenced to detention of not less than five days and not more than ten days, and if the circumstances are serious, he shall be sentenced to detention of not less than ten days and not more than fifteen days.
Legally, the police's sentence is clearly legal. But is such a sentence reasonable?
Mrs. Lin of Hangzhou, who apparently had a different view, was hugged tightly by Chen and groped several times on June 2, 2019, when she was passing by the entrance of a hotel.
After breaking free, Ms. Lin immediately called the police, but the police thought that the other indecent assault lasted for a relatively short period of time, and the attitude of admitting fault was good, belonging to the "circumstances are particularly minor", and therefore did not give the punishment, Ms. Lin did not accept such a sentence, and the public security organs sued the court, requesting that the police at least change the sentence to more than 10 days of administrative detention.
In the face of such a minor punishment, there must be many other molested people like Ms. Lin who think the law does not give a fair sentence.
And can such a light sentence achieve sufficient deterrence?
From May to June 2020, Zheng, 67, frequently molested passengers and crew members on the subway, committing seven crimes in two months. The police sentenced Zheng to six months in prison for forced molestation because the circumstances were so egregious that he had previously been sentenced to 10 days in administrative detention for salty hands.
At least in this case, the administrative detention didn't curb Zheng's lust for sex, and the minor punishment in turn fueled Zheng's arrogance. It is just that he lacks legal knowledge and does not know that the law also has the existence of the crime of forced molestation.
But in reality, most cases of sexual harassment do not meet the standard of forced molestation, and a ten-day detention is the upper limit.
How do other countries deal with sexual harassers?
U.S. law has been expanding the scope of sexual harassment, which is not limited to physical aggression, but can also include inappropriate language.
Once found guilty of sexual harassment, a harasser can be fined a huge amount of money, as in the case of Chinese-American tycoon Wei Tianbing, who paid out $5.65 million in damages for harassment.
In the United States, the me too movement is in full swing, with more and more harassed women coming forward to identify their perpetrators, and many celebrities are caught in the crossfire.
Japanese law provides for three years in prison or a fine of 30,000 yen for a first offense of sexual harassment, and up to 10 years in particularly serious cases.
In Singapore, harassing a woman can attract not only a lengthy jail term and a fine of tens of thousands of dollars, but also caning.
These countries' legal systems are not better than ours, but they have developed over a longer period of time and are more experienced in dealing with sexual harassment, so perhaps we can take the best of what they have to offer and better protect women's rights.