原创《AnUncomfortableDebate》：本文关于AnUncomfortableDebate论文范文,可以做为相关论文参考文献,与写作提纲思路参考。
On August 29, the 12th Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress （NPC）, China’s top legislative body, approved the nullification of the crime of “soliciting underage prostitutes,” reclassifying this offense as statutory rape.
According to the wording of the resolution, from November 1, 2015, any male over 16 years old who has sex with a girl under 14, regardless of whether or not “consent” has been given, will be prosecuted for rape, a crime which carries a maximum sentence of death.
The change has been viewed as a positive response to public outrage at media exposés of groups of adult men, including many government officials, whose sexual abuse of children has been punished with only light penalties due to the now-defunct statute. However, while the Chinese public appears to overwhelmingly support the new law, lawyers and legal experts are divided, as they were when the crime of “soliciting underage prostitutes” was added to China’s Criminal Law in 1997.
Public Appeal
According to legal professionals, the crime of “soliciting underage prostitutes” first appeared on the NPC’s agenda in the early 1990s when the Chinese government launched one of its perennial crackdowns on the country’s sex industry. Although China’s Criminal Law classified sex with a minor as rape, many offenders attempted to escape punishment by pleading ignorance of their victims’ ages, or by arguing that the children involved gave consent.
As verifying such claims in a court of law proved difficult, China’s legislature added the crime of “soliciting underage prostitutes” to the Criminal Law statute in 1997, recommending a penalty of five to 15 years imprisonment for any offender. Judges were given discretion at trial when it came to determining whether or not a child molester was guilty of rape or of “soliciting underage prostitutes,” but no plaintiff could be prosecuted for both crimes.
Although the revision split the legal profession, the NPC Criminal Law Committee told media at the time that the revised statute was designed to “facilitate cracking down on prostitution and protecting children.” Legislators argued that they were merely complying with requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which China became a signatory in 1991.
“The [new crime] aimed to distinguish between soliciting child or adult prostitutes, [as the latter] is not defined as a violation of China’s Criminal Law,” Gao Mingxuan, a law professor at Beijing’s Renmin University, told China Youth Daily.
AnUncomfortableDebate论文参考资料：
结论：AnUncomfortableDebate为关于本文可作为相关专业AnUncomfortableDebate论文写作研究的大学硕士与本科毕业论文uncomfortablely论文开题报告范文和职称论文参考文献资料。
