First Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Since Amendment to Women's Law

December 1, 2005

The parties in a Beijing sexual harassment case reached a settlement out of court in favor of the plaintiff, according to a November 4 Beijing Morning Post article posted on Xinhua's Web site. The case was the first since the National People's Congress Standing Committee outlawed sexual harassment in an August 2005 amendment to the Law on the Protection of the Interests and Rights of Women.

The parties in a Beijing sexual harassment case reached a settlement out of court in favor of the plaintiff, according to a November 4 Beijing Morning Post article posted on Xinhua's Web site. The case was the first since the National People's Congress Standing Committee outlawed sexual harassment in an August 2005 amendment to the Law on the Protection of the Interests and Rights of Women.

In March 2005, the plaintiff was working as a model at a Beijing art school when a male student assaulted her. She reported the offense to public security officials, and the student confessed and wrote a record of the events. Sexual harassment cases often are difficult to prosecute because of lack of evidence, noted Chen Zhengzheng, a judge with the Haidian District Court in Beijing, according to an article in the Beijing Review. Despite the strong evidence, the plaintiff withdrew her lawsuit and settled out of court due to "social and family pressures," according to the Beijing Morning Post article.

Li Ying, a lawyer at the Beijing University Women's Legal Aid Center who represented the plaintiff, hoped that this case would encourage more women to come forward with sexual harassment complaints, according to a Legal Daily report posted on the People's Daily Web site. Xinhua also reports that the Chinese news organizations Sina and Fortnight conducted a survey and found that nearly 80 percent of Chinese women had experienced sexual harassment. Despite the prevalence of the problem, before the National People's Congress Standing Committee amended the law, Chinese courts had heard fewer than 10 sexual harassment cases, and most judges ruled in favor of the defendant, the Xinhua article reported. Guo Jianmei, Li's colleague at the Legal Aid Center, noted that women's families often view victims of sexual harassment as suffering a "loss of face," according to an Agence France-Presse article posted on the South China Morning Post Web site (subscription required). In the same report, Wang Xingjuan of the Maple Women's Psychological Consulting Center in Beijing blamed "a culture to criticize the victim" of sexual harassment for the small number of cases.