Sexual assault or harassment is no new issue in public vehicles, espcecially in buses, trains or anywhere else that is jammed with passengers.
A woman had her throat cut after she slapped the man who groped her inside a public bus.
During Monda morning rush hour in Beijing’s Tongzhou District, a 30-year old woman, who was only identified by her surname, Gong, was stabbed inside the Bus 582. She felt a fellow passenger was touching her maliciously so she slapped him. Furious by the woman's reaction, the suspect waved a fruit knife and stabbed Gong.
The 26-year old attacker was apprehended by the driver and fellow passengers from the northeastern China’s Liaoning province until police arrived and took him into custody.
Gong was rushed to the hospital and underwent surgery and have to stay in the intensive care unit. Her brother said a vein and nerve in her neck was severed, had four stabs including one to the lung. She lost a large amount of blood and was unconscious when rescue came.
The victim is a white collar worker and has a 7-year old son who is in his first year of grade school. He was told that his mother had a sudden business trip.
The Tongzhou police released a statement on their Weibo account on the same day about the said attack, however, they did not mention that the woman was sexually harassed by the suspect. A Beijing-based non-government organization called, Feminist Voices, reposted the statement and added a caption, "Is it risky to resist sexual harassment on public transport?"
This cases doesn't seem to be rare in Chinese public transportation vehicles. A series of similar cases were recorded where women who tries to defend themselves for sexual harassment are most likely ignored by the authorities. Even dare to blame the victim for what happened.
Last May, a woman, who filmed a taxi driver for masturbating beside her, was detained by the police for violating an anti-pornography law. Another one was a woman who got hit by a man was sued for defamation for posting her experience on Weibo microblog.
"If you look at the recent incidents collectively, you can see a trend among the public, who expect victims to be perfect," Guangzhou-based feminist activist Zhang Leilei told Sixth Tone on Wednesday. According to Zhang, the public looks to victims to determine why harassment takes place, often claiming they did not protect themselves well enough, or that they have some problem that explains why bad things happen to them.
In the southern part of China, transport authorities dismissed the plans of Guangzhou-based advocacy group F Feminist to display an anti-sexual harassment billboard in the city’s subway. Instead, both Guangzhou and Shenzhen opted to try giving subway cars for female use only.
Source: Sixthtone
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