Teen’s suicide sparks soul- searching

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Shanghai, June 28: The suicide of a teenager in China whose sexual haras- sment case was dismissed has triggered a bout of national soul- searching over her treatment and anger at onlookers who encouraged her to jump off a building.

Li Yiyi, 19, died last week after throwing herself from the eighth floor of a department store in Qingyang, a city in northwest Gansu province, following previous suicide attempts, police said.

A public outcry erupted after videos of the scene circulated online and reports that some bystanders had jeered her and urged the young woman to “jump quickly” as firefighters tried to save her. The police said on Monday they had detained two people who had booed, and started investigations into six others for verbally abusive online posts about Li. “The world is getting more and more indifferent. Iam scared. Just how mentally defected are those people who booed her to jump?” questioned a user on Weibo. The case put a new spotlight on the struggle among Chinese women to get legal help in sexual abuse allegations. The teenager was upset as prosecutors cleared a high school teacher whom she had accused of forcibly kissing her and trying to take her clothes September 2016.

Li and her father had repeatedly sought charges against him, but local prosecutors decided not to try him, declaring that his behaviour was a “slight” offence that did not constitute a crime. She appealed to a higher prosecutor, who off in ■ also rejected her case.

The teacher was briefly detained, but kept his job.

“She fought for two years. Except for her father, no one including teachers, the school, the court and the prosecutor cared about her pain. Only those firefighters kept trying to save her,” a Weibo user wrote.