'They raped my girl's body and soul'

By Cui Jia (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-19 08:23

She watches as the man creeps into her room in the dead of night and edges towards her bed, his face twisted with an evil grin. Just as he lifts her duvet, Kang Qian screams, jolting her from her sleep.

Teenage girls, also known as "backpack girls", make their way to school. [Pan Zhengguang]

Soaked in sweat, she begins to cry. The 14-year-old has had the recurring nightmare ever since she was forced into a life of prostitution two years ago.

Kang Qian, not her real name, was one of at least 10 victims of a child sex scandal involving government officials exposed last year in Xishui county, in southwestern Guizhou province.

Police discovered the girls, all primary and secondary school students, had been coerced by threats of violence into joining an underage prostitution ring run by Yuan Li, a 37-year-old jobless woman, and two teenage accomplices, between October 2007 and July 2008.

Yuan offered men sex with her "backpack girls" for money, while also using some as "hunters" to recruit their friends or classmates. Police started an investigation on Aug 15 last year after the mother of one victim reported her daughter was pregnant after being raped.

Li Shoumin, of the county migration office; Chen Mengran, a land and resources official; social security official Huang Yongliang, legal affairs official Chen Cun, real estate developer Mu Mingzhong, teacher Feng Zhiyang and taxi driver Feng Yong stood trial at Xishui County People's Court on April 8 accused of having sex with underage prostitutes.

However, no verdict was reached and, on April 22, the local public prosecutor suspended the case and ordered a fresh probe, with many expecting the charge to be upgraded to child rape, which carries a heavier punishment, in time for the next trial, the date of which is still to be announced.

"How can they call me a prostitute when I was forced into it," said an angry Kang. "I almost became a girl hunter myself when I was told I had to bring other girls if I wanted to avoid doing it (sleeping with the men) myself.

"I was afraid the gang would kill me if I said a word. That's why I didn't tell anyone, including my parents."

"No girls did it voluntarily, trust me. The gang got all the money, we just didn't want to be killed."

She added: "I really don't want to talk about my past any more. All I want is to get out of Xishui and go to another town where nobody knows me, to start afresh."

Wang Qing, also not her real name, was 13 years old when a friend introduced her to the boss of the prostitution ring. She described to Chongqing Evening News how she had been forced to lose her virginity to one of the seven accused, Feng Zhiyang.

"I was so afraid. I was forced into a hotel where the man locked the door and stripped me. I kept crying," she told the newspaper. "Afterwards, the gang threatened me that if I talked about it to anyone else I would be beaten up.

"I later found out the man was a teacher in the local vocational high school. It was perverted some of the things he made me do!"

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