The issue of child sex abuse is again under the spotlight. A Chinese billionaire and a wealthy financier in the U.S. have been detained for suspicion of child sexual assault. Attention has surged on the money and status of the accused, the severity of the allegation, and questions of how they could have got away with their crime. Despite severe laws prohibiting sex crimes against children, deterrence still seems insufficient.

During the interview with CGTN's Dialogue program, Francesco Sisci, an international commentator from Settimana News in Rome, says that the essence of child sexual abuse is the issue on abuse of power. The children are defenseless in many situations, and there was no awareness to the massive abuses of power in the past. Although people have realized ramifications for the affected children, unfortunately, they still lacks sufficient solutions to help children and restrain the adult's behavior.

"This is extremely difficult," he says. "You need adults to teach children, but how can you restrain them?"

The Chinese billionaire surnamed Wang, who was until recently the chairman of the billion-dollar real estate company Seazen Holdings, was formally arrested on suspicion of molesting a nine-year-old girl on Wednesday. Regarding Wang's case, Professor Zheng Xi, from the School of Law at Beijing Foreign Studies University, is deeply concerned about the trial fairness. He points out that Wang has been currently arrested for child molestation, which is different with the term of "rape". And the punishment for child molestation is much softer than raping a child.

According to the Criminal Law of China, Article 236, whoever has sex relations with a girl under the age of 14 is to be deemed to have committed rape and is to be sentenced to 3 to 10 years of fixed-term imprisonment, or maybe a heavier punishment depends on the circumstances. But, according to Article 237, whoever, by violence, coercion or other means, forces, molests, or humiliates a woman or a child is to be sentenced to not more than 5 years of fixed-term imprisonment or criminal detention.

Harvey Dzodin, senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, argues that the issue of child sexual abuse is underreporting both in China and the U.S.. "Why? Because if children and their parents know about this, they will be afraid to come forward," he adds. "In many cases, the children who are victimized are further demonized by defense attorneys acting on behalf of the accused. So it takes actually a lot of courage to come forward."

In addition, Dzodin says the reason behind the cases of Chinese billionaire and U.S. wealthy financier is because they believe that they can get away with anything since they have enough money to buy people off.

"This is really unfair in many systems around the world, that money still talks and trumps justice," Dzodin states.

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