In recent years, a new type of crime against minors has emerged. Adults in their twenties and thirties pretend to be intimate girlfriends who talk about everything on the Internet, and trick minors into sending photos and videos of their private parts. The procuratorate in Beijing's Haidian District handled one such case, in which more than 40 minors were violated in three years.
On March 28, according to the Beijing Haidian Procuratorate, a man who molested more than 40 minors in the air for 3 years was sentenced to the highest level.
Facts of the case:
Shu, male, born in 1998, was unemployed before the case. From 2019 to 2022, for the purpose of pursuing sexual stimulation, Shu took the initiative to meet a number of minor victims aged 7-14 through online platforms, and lured and coerced the victims to send them intimate photos and videos such as exposing their private parts, bathing, and masturbating through the Internet for them to watch, and posted them on the Internet or disseminated them to others.
The Haidian District Procuratorate prosecuted Shu on suspicion of child molestation and forcible indecency, and because Shu had molested many children and had heinous indecent methods, our court recommended that he be sentenced to 15 years in prison for child molestation and one year in prison for compulsory indecency.
The Haidian District People's Court convicted Shu of child molestation and sentenced him to 15 years' imprisonment and deprivation of political rights for five years, and sentenced him to one year's imprisonment for forcible indecency, and decided to enforce the sentence of 15 years and six months imprisonment and deprivation of political rights for five years.
In August 2022, an internet platform found that the man Shu asked minors for photos and videos of their private body parts, so he immediately reported the case to the public security organs, and the public security organs arrested Shu after filing a case for investigation.
In Shu's computer and storage device, the police found intimate photos and videos of more than 40 minors. This evidence shows that Shu has been asking for photos and videos for three years, but none of the victims have reported the case.
So, why didn't these 40 children and their parents report the crime? Shu's chat records with the victim show that once the other party sent the photos to Shu, they fell into his trap. After that, Shu will ask the other party to take a picture of the body part he specified or the action he requested. Once the victim hesitates or refuses, Shu will threaten the other party.
In the face of threats, some children are afraid to tell their parents what happened to them, and they are also afraid that their intimate photos will be published or even spread, so they can only continue to listen to Shu's words and complete the next instruction. There are also some children who tell their parents what happened, or parents who take the initiative to find out what happened to their children, but these parents only cut off the contact between the children and Shu.
Li Siyao, Prosecutor of the People's Procuratorate of Haidian District, Beijing: Some parents realized that this might be an illegal and criminal act, but because it involved their children's privacy, they did not report the case out of shame.
The procuratorate believes that Shu used the Internet to trick more than 40 minors into sending photos and videos of their private parts, and even sending insulting and obscene language, which caused serious harm to children's personal dignity and mental health.
In September 2023, the People's Procuratorate of Haidian District, Beijing, charged the defendant Shu with the crime of child molestation and filed a public prosecution with the People's Court of Haidian District, Beijing. In early March this year, the case was tried in court, and the circumstances of Shu's crime were heinous, and the procuratorate recommended that he be sentenced to 15 years in prison in accordance with the sentencing standards for this crime.
Legal experts believe that criminals who commit crimes against minors on the Internet, although there is no physical contact, will also cause serious harm to children's personal dignity and mental health.
Legal experts also mentioned that the harmful consequences of cyber-based infringements will last longer. Due to the data storage mechanism in cyberspace, it is relatively easy to keep records of audiovisual materials generated during the commission of criminal acts, and once the perpetrator disseminates these videos and pictures in cyberspace, the adverse effects will be infinitely magnified, and it is difficult to technically eradicate the online data after rapid copying.
Zhu Wei, Deputy Director of the Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law: By saving video materials and other related methods, bad actors can continue to blackmail and blackmail children, and children's families will also be wiped out, and it may develop offline.
In the process of handling this case, the police and prosecutors spent a year finding the children who were killed one by one and collecting key evidence of Shu's crime. How did the parents respond to the victims' abuses? When the prosecutor went to the victims' homes to collect evidence, they saw first-hand the real reactions of the parents.
Li Siyao: This makes me very sad. There was a little girl who didn't cry when she talked about how the suspect threatened her, but when she told her father about it, after being beaten by her father, tears came down.
Psychologists believe that because the psychological development of minors is not yet sound, parental scolding is actually a manifestation of blame, which is not conducive to the physical and mental development of children. In addition to professional psychological help, parents can solve problems through empathy and guidance.
Yu Feng, Professor of the Department of Psychology of Wuhan University: Parents should not scold their children, but should pay attention to their children's emotions and think about why they do it from the perspective of their children. Parents should also review their own mistakes and let their children recognize their own problems and shortcomings. In addition, the child should also be told that legal help has been sought in this matter and that he is no longer afraid.
In this case of crimes against minors, online platforms are also a presence that cannot be ignored. On January 1 this year, the Regulations on the Protection of Minors on the Internet came into force, which is the first comprehensive legislation on the protection of minors on the Internet issued by the mainland. It not only clearly stipulates the legal responsibilities of online platforms, but also strictly restricts them.
Article 38 of the "Regulations" stipulates that where network service providers discover that minors' private information or personal information published by minors through the network involves private information, they shall promptly give a reminder and employ necessary protective measures such as stopping transmission to prevent the spread of the information. Where network service providers discover through minors' private information that minors might have been harmed, they shall immediately employ necessary measures to store relevant records and report to the public security organs.
In order to allow online platforms to detect the signs of harm against minors earlier, the Regulations on the Protection of Minors Online also urge online service providers to improve their technology, implement more thorough protection for minor users, and reduce online harm to minors.
Procurators suggest that after online platforms identify illegal or criminal acts against minors, in addition to reporting the case to the public security organs, they should also ban the relevant accounts as soon as possible. In addition, after discovering that some users have committed illegal and criminal acts, the platform shall find out which group chats the users have joined, determine whether there are potential dangers in the group chats, and conduct further screening to prevent the occurrence of illegal and criminal acts.
Source: CCTV News