Loopholes need to be plugged for excluding unqualified foreign teachers

Were it not for a father discovering his 12- year- old daughter was being sexually exploited and blackmailed by her former English teacher from the United States, the then employee of EF Education First, a language training company headquartered in Shanghai, 47- year- old Curtis J. Baldwin from Springfield, Missouri, might still be at large.

Were it not for the US Department of Justice reporting the case on Oct 6 as a testimony to its zero tolerance to the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse within the framework of Project Safe Childhood, an initiative it launched in 2006, the case might not have been noticed.

According to the report of the Department of Justice, Baldwin pleaded guilty in federal court to sexually exploiting one of his former students by attempting to blackmail her into sending him pornographic images on Oct 5.

Baldwin left his employment at the company on Nov 20, last year. After he returned to Springfield, he contacted the former student via the WeChat messaging app, saying he had video footage that showed her engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and threatening to post the video on the internet unless she sent him images and a video of herself engaged in sexually explicit conduct. The father saw the messages and contacted the language school, which relayed the information to the FBI for investigation.

Notably, in their search of Baldwin’s residence on March 10, federal agents seized multiple items, including Baldwin’s Apple MacBook Pro, which contained child pornography, including multiple videos of Chinese minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, as the Department of Justice said in its report. That means there might be more victims apart from the 12- year- old.

The case has once again exposed the loopholes in the recruitment system for foreign teachers, which some evildoers take advantage of to sexually exploit minors.

It is no secret that such management loopholes are not only restricted to this particular company, but the whole foreign language training market in China where the huge demand has prompted some companies to lower their threshold for foreign language teachers.

Even if the education authority has strict requirements for foreign applicants for such posts, there are companies that help unqualified foreign job seekers to forge their documents and supporting materials to win them teaching- related occupational qualifications.

In some cases, even non- native English speakers can be recommended as experienced English teachers to Chinese parents who are anxious to make their children fluent in English.

As such, the children become victims of different parties, including the lack of oversight by the watchdog departments.