Underage boy going free after alleged stabbing raises debate in China

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The case of a 13-year-old boy avoiding prosecution for allegedly attacking a girl in central China has stirred discussion on the country’s minimum age of criminal responsibility.

The mother of the girl, 14, posted pictures of her daughter’s wounds on the Chinese social media platform Weibo earlier in June, saying that a boy with scissors had held her daughter captive while waiting for the elevator to go home.

Deng, the girl's mother, posted on Weibo pictures of wounds to her daughter from the alleged attack. / Screenshot from Weibo

The mother, Deng, said that the boy, Huang, stabbed her daughter after a failed attempt to steal money from her, and then forced her to take off her clothes.

Zhang, the daughter, was later found hiding in the building by local police. She was naked and covered in blood, along with wounds to her neck, arms, and legs, according to the publication Cover.

Authorities announced on Weibo on June 27 that they had captured and detained the boy the very night he had allegedly committed the attack on March 30 but had released him because he wasn't 14 years old yet.

Local police announced on Weibo that the boy was released because he had not reached the country’s age for criminal responsibility. /Screenshot from Weibo

According to China’s criminal law, juveniles below the age of 14 are not liable for crimes they’ve allegedly committed.

But Deng was not satisfied with the outcome, so she continued to post on Weibo to raise greater awareness of her daughter’s case, gaining more than 10,000 reposts and nearly 8,000 comments.

“Someone told me that the law protected underage criminals, but who can protect my young daughter as a victim?” Deng said in one of her posts on June 24.

A medical note detailing the injuries Zhang had sustained. /Photo via the Cover

Local authorities said that the victim could instead file a civil claim to seek compensation, but the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement.

Deng told the Paper that she expected a well-rounded law instead of any financial compensation. “The law should protect minors, not the perpetrators,” she said.

The case elicited widespread concern, with legal experts calling for a lowering of the minimum age to be held criminally liable, reported the Paper.

Xu Xin, a law professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, told the Paper that the academic community generally accepts the lowering of the minimum age because juveniles now mature earlier. He suggested that the age should be changed during the next amendment to the country's criminal law.

Since the 1990s, there has been a surge of legislative reform in many countries to lower the age of criminal responsibility. France brought the age down to 12, while England and Wales in the UK set it at 10.