Abuse cases revealed to aid courts

A quarter of Chinese families have experienced domestic violence and 10 percent of all criminal homicides involved domestic abuse, China's top court said Thursday.

The Supreme People's Court (SPC) released examples of 10 cases involving domestic violence to offer guidance to local courts in how to deal with similar cases at a press conference in Beijing.

SPC spokesperson Sun Jungong said that 24.7 percent of Chinese families had experienced abuse.

"Few abuse cases are referred to courts, as people with less power, such as women, children and the elderly have limited access to legal aid and some dare not seek help for fear of revenge. Many still believe that domestic violence is shameful and should be kept inside their own families," said Xue Shulan, a deputy chief judge of the SPC Thursday.

According to China's Criminal Law, perpetrators of serious domestic abuse could see up to two years in jail, a term which could be upped to seven years if victims are severely injured or killed.

Xue added that a judicial interpretation regarding domestic violence can be expected within the first half of 2014, which will give specific definitions to terms like "serious abuse," which currently is unclear.

Of the published cases, one involved a woman who killed her foster father after being sexually abused by him for years which resulted in pregnancy. She was sentenced to three years in jail with probation of five years.

"Suspects who countered domestic violence with violence nationwide have been given a lesser punishment as the victims were initially the wrongdoers," Xue said.

Most cases ended with divorce or change of custody to rescue wives or children from violent males in their families.

Psychological threats will also be counted as violence. In one case, a husband was ruled to have mentally tortured his wife, surnamed Zheng, because he wrapped a basketball with cloth that read "I will beat Zheng to death" and hit it every day. In other cases, a senior couple was granted a protection order to ban abuse from their adult children and a woman was protected from her ex-husband who harassed her after divorce.

It has been difficult to get local courts to treat domestic violence cases seriously, said Feng Yuan, co-founder of the Anti-Domestic Violence Network.

"Many courts pay little significance to domestic abuse and many cases aren't identified as domestic violence," Feng said.

"This prevents many maltreated people from seeking help. The release of typical cases may help raise awareness of domestic violence among these courts," Feng noted.

Li Yan, from Sichuan province, was sentenced to death for killing her husband in 2010 after suffering years of abuse. Li had approached police, family and other organizations for help, to no avail.