The Global Times highlights an interesting case that caught our attention yesterday.

A 42-year-old security guard at a fitness club in Beijing was sentenced to one year behind bars for raping an 18-year-old male colleague in the dormitory, but prosecutors had a tough time dealing with this case because there is no law against anal rape in China!

Here’s the problem: According to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, rape is very narrowly defined as “a man’s penetration of the vagina without the woman’s consent”. The anal rape by a man of a woman is covered separately under “sexual molestation”, but there is technically nothing in the law to prosecute a man who has anally raped another man!

In this particular case, prosecutors eventually charged the security guard for “committing intentional injury” to his victim. After he was found guilty, Zhang was ordered to pay Li RMB20,000 as compensation and put behind bars for a year.

Shanghai-based lawyer Zhou Dan, who specialises in LGBT- and HIV-related cases, laments the loophole in the law on sexual assault between two men or two women. “Some people take advantage of that and remain on the street after sexual assaults if the victim suffers no substantial injuries,” Zhou told the Global Times.

Here’s hoping that China will soon implement gender-neutral laws, not just for sexual assault, but for all other laws in its criminal code.



