Source: Democracy and the Rule of Law Network
Author: Ma Fucai
The establishment of a faculty and staff access inquiry system is an effective line of defense to protect campus safety. However, guarding the pure land on the campus side is a systematic project, which not only requires school education, but also requires family education not to be absent, and social education to be in place in a timely manner, which is a work involving education, management, response and handling.
Recently, the Sichuan Provincial Department of Education revealed in its reply to the proposal of the CPPCC members that among the 1.176 million teachers and staff and other school practitioners who were compared and screened, 101 people with criminal records, especially 101 key personnel with previous convictions for sexual assault, were found to have been promptly notified to the local education administrative departments and schools for handling.
The news quickly became the focus of public attention, so many ex-offenders "lurking" in the faculty and staff, can the campus still be safe? How did they get into the teaching staff? How should the Campus Pure Land be guarded? How to protect the rights of minors when their rights and interests are infringed... This series of issues has received widespread attention.
The faculty and staff entry inquiry system has been implemented in many places
Liu Mou is a 16-year-old male middle school student at a middle school in Beijing, and on September 19 and September 28, 2018, Wang Mouming, a cadre of the school's male security department, threatened to violate school rules and discipline and forcibly molested Liu twice.
In the end, the victim called the police, and the public security organ confirmed the facts of his crime after investigation, and finally, the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled that Wang Mouming was guilty of forced indecency in accordance with the law, sentenced him to 2 years in prison, and banned him from engaging in juvenile education for 3 years.
However, with the implementation of the faculty and staff entry inquiry system, Wang Mouming can no longer engage in education work for life. On September 18, 2020, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, together with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Public Security, jointly issued the Opinions on Establishing a System for Faculty and Staff to Access Information on Sexual Assault Violations and Crimes, which will not be hired or recognized as teachers for those with criminal records of sexual assault.
Prior to this, on October 19, 2018, the Supreme People's Procuratorate sent a procuratorial recommendation to the Ministry of Education, which was the first time that the Supreme Procuratorate sent procuratorial suggestions directly to the constituent departments of the State Council, and it was also the first procuratorial recommendation on social governance innovation issued by the Supreme Procuratorate, numbered No. 1, called "Procuratorial Recommendation No. 1". The "No. 1 Procuratorial Recommendation" originated from a protest case of sexual assault of students in school. Teacher Qi Raped and Molested several girls at school, refused to admit guilt, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The Supreme People's Procuratorate filed a protest with the Supreme People's Court on the grounds that the judgment in the case was wrong to apply the law and the sentence was unusually lenient, and Qi was later sentenced to life imprisonment.
In April 2019, after the issuance of the "No. 1 Procuratorial Recommendation", the Shanghai Municipal Procuratorial Organs, together with the Municipal Public Security Bureau and the Municipal Education Commission, issued the Opinions on Establishing a System for Restricting the Employment of Persons Involved in Sexual Assault and Crimes, requiring enterprises, public institutions and social organizations engaged in industries with close contact with minors in the city to conduct onboarding personnel in the process of recruiting employees.
On July 4, 2019, the Chongqing Municipal People's Procuratorate and the Chongqing Municipal Education Commission issued the Interim Measures for the Entry Inquiry of Faculty and Staff, which is the first provincial-level faculty and staff entry inquiry platform in China, which blocks people with "previous convictions" from the campus.
Wang Yuguo, associate professor of Nanyang Institute of Technology, said in an interview with our reporter that the "No. 1 Procuratorial Recommendation" has attracted much attention in society, and after local active exploration and implementation, some problems have also been found. In April 2020, the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued the Opinions of the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Strengthening Juvenile Procuratorial Work in the New Era, which requires that "arrests and prosecutions against minors should be approved and prosecuted in a strict and expeditious manner in accordance with the law." Punish crimes that endanger school safety, guardianship violations, and rural left-behind children and children in distress in accordance with the law."
In local exploration and practice, the system of faculty and staff entry inquiry is about to emerge. Our reporter combed and found that so far many places in the country, including Shandong, Henan, Jiangxi, Guangdong, etc., have implemented a system for access to illegal and criminal information for teachers and staff groups.
Sexual assault on campus is an untouchable pain
The national faculty and staff entry inquiry system has been implemented, and the scope of entry inquiry is extensive, and the prohibition of sexual assault is particularly eye-catching. Because sexual assault cases that should be the purest campus have become an untouchable bottom line pain.
Wu Shaoshan (pseudonym), a farmer in Huanggang Town, Tongbai County, Henan Province, has not returned to his hometown for 9 years, because his hometown has become a "pain that he can't go back to". Nine years ago, his 10-year-old daughter attended primary school in the countryside of his hometown, when he worked at a construction site in Nanyang City, more than 100 kilometers away from home. It was not until primary school teacher Yang Moufu was criminally detained on suspicion of indecency against students that he learned that Yang Moufu had raped and molested a number of girls in school, and his daughter was one of them. On October 15, 2013, after the case was heard in private by the Nanyang Intermediate People's Court, Yang was sentenced to death with a two-year suspension of execution.
Wu Shaoshan told this reporter that after the incident, in order to escape the hometown that left them nightmares, Wu Shaoshan had to take all the old and young people with him and go out to work. Since then, her daughter's academic performance has plummeted, barely graduating from junior high school, and now working in a small processing factory with her mother. A neighbor once told him that his house in his hometown was about to collapse due to long-term uninhabited, and the local government said that it could be included in the dangerous house renovation project, but he would rather "float" in the city than go back.
Xu Qingyong, an associate professor at Qingdao University, said that campus sexual assault cases are indelible pain for victims and society, because childhood leaves psychological shadows that often affect a lifetime.
So how can these fragile and innocent children be protected from destruction and abuse? In addition to denouncing those shameless crimes that violate human morality, society should also reflect and rationally analyze to find out the prevention and control of campus sexual assault cases.
Huang Miao, a teacher who has been engaged in psychology teaching for many years, said: "The depth of harm to children in school sexual assault cases is unimaginable, so it is necessary to establish a full set of working mechanisms for pre-prevention, emergency rescue and post-treatment counseling, find a correct entry point, communicate and talk alone, understand the inner world of victims, and accept and guide their negative emotions to vent." ”
How to protect the pure land of the campus?
Some offenders who have not yet committed a crime of indecently assaulting minors have not entered the procuratorial system and cannot be screened for entry inquiries; This was a problem discovered by the procuratorate in areas where the entry inquiry system had been implemented. In this regard, the System for Inquiring into the Entry of Faculty and Staff jointly issued by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Public Security is precisely based on the national information system for sexual assault offenders built by the Ministry of Public Security to achieve national information sharing on sexual assault and crimes and effectively solve problems such as missed investigations.
In addition to establishing a faculty and staff access inquiry system, there are still many things to be done to thoroughly protect the pure land on the campus side. Wang Fangfang (pseudonym), principal of a primary school in Nanyang City, Henan Province, told this reporter that her school is located in the urban-rural junction zone, in order to improve students' safety awareness, so that students avoid traveling alone is an important task carried out by the school; in addition, the school also asks psychologists to conduct necessary sexual knowledge education and prevention of sexual assault education for students from time to time; for teachers and staff to carry out long-term rule of law education and teacher morality education, and also established a set of evaluation mechanisms.
Guarding the pure land on the campus side is a systematic project, which not only requires school education, but also requires family education not to be absent, and social education to be in place in a timely manner, which is a work involving education, management, coping and other aspects. As early as September 3, 2013, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Public Security, the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, and the All-China Women's Federation jointly issued the "Opinions on Doing a Good Job in Preventing Sexual Assault of Children and Adolescents", which put forward the requirements of "scientifically doing a good job in preventing sexual assault education, regularly carrying out hidden danger investigations, strictly managing girls' dormitories, and effectively strengthening the management of teaching staff", and strived to build a working mechanism for the protection of primary and secondary school students in education, public security, the Communist Youth League, the Women's Federation, the family, and society, so as to achieve full coverage of safety supervision.
When the Supreme People's Procuratorate held a press conference to issue the "Opinions on Establishing a System for Faculty and Staff to Access information on sexual assault and crimes", the relevant person in charge of the court said that with the revision and implementation of laws such as the Law on the Protection of Minors, the Supreme People's Procuratorate will continue to expand the situation of prohibition of employment and gradually expand to all industries that are in close contact with minors.
Schools are the garden for cultivating children's growth, providing a safe environment for children and teenagers to grow up is the unshirkable responsibility of the whole society, and the rule of law is the best guarantee and barrier.