On November 25th, the International day for the elimination of domestic violence, the Internet star Yuya exposed the fact that she had suffered domestic violence from her ex-boyfriend Tuotuo for a long time. In the video uploaded on the Internet, she screamed when grabbed at feet and dragged out from the elevator by Tuotuo, and said that nobody knew what happened to her even if she had called for help with all her might, which rends our hearts.
Similarly, just one day later, Jingfu Jiang was found abusing her girlfriend from Uruguayan and beating up his parents. We think those who implement domestic violence are devils.
From 2016 to 2018, the Women’ Federation in Guangdong has accepted 14172 domestic violence petitions. Only in Guangdong, every day at least 13 victims seek help to escape domestic violence, which reflects the importance to fight domestic violence.
What can be defined as domestic violence? Yuya and Tuotuo hasn’t get married, domestic violence?
Of course! The China’s law against domestic violence prohibits any form of domestic violence, including physical, psychological and other harm done by family members with beatings, restraint, slaughter or forcible limits on physical liberty, recurring invective and verbal threats. Those who are not get married but live together are also bound by the aforementioned law, i.e. that both cohabitation and domestic service relationship between a live-in nanny and his/her employer are bound by the aforementioned law.
The point is how to save ourselves when encountering domestic violence. Call the cops at the first time! Don’t see it as a skeleton in the closet or worry that police may not deal with domestic relations, because the law against domestic violence specifies the obligations of police to stop violence and help victims to see doctors and identify injuries. The aforementioned law divides the behaviour of domestic violence into three levels and stipulates a set of measures for police to deal with these kinds of cases.
If the circumstances of domestic violence are relatively minor and do not reach the punishment level of public security administration, the police shall criticize, educate the abuser and issue a warning which records the identity information of the abuser and the fact of domestic violence, and prohibit the abuser from committing domestic violence again. At the same time, the police shall inform the residents’ and villagers’ committees of the warning letters, conduct regular visits to the victims and supervise the abuser not to commit domestic violence again.
The next two levels are the administrative punishment and criminal punishment areas respectively stipulated by the law on public security administration and the criminal law, so the specific punishment depends on the law violated by the abuser. According to the latest news, Tuotuo was determined to violate the law on public security administration because of intentionally injuring and threatening others’ personal safety through WeChat. The local police has decided to detain him for 20 days and impose a fine.
Some people may think that, domestic violence is just a kind of domestic affair, and it may not cause such a serious crime. Right? Justice has long arms. In July 2011, a woman from Wuhan committed suicide after being beaten with a belt for a long time by her ex-husband, Zhu, who lived with her and eventually was sentenced to five years for maltreatment. In 2012, Xu from Hebei province was sentenced to death for intentionally beating his father to death who suffered from cerebral thrombosis resulting in reduced mobility. The China’s Supreme Court had approved the death sentence of Xu and executed him. Last year, Gu from Bao’an district in Shenzhen, was sentenced to seven months in prison for maltreatment after he repeatedly beat his children with sticks and hangers, causing second-degree minor injures to his daughter.
On November 27th, the second day after Tuotuo was placed in administrative detention, Jiangbei Court made the habeas of Yuya based on her application.
The writ of habeas corpus refers to the means of protection that the parties can apply to the people’s court when they suffer from domestic violence or face the real danger of domestic violence. The aforementioned writ protects the applicant by limiting the behaviour of the abuser, including:
(1) prohibiting domestic violence from the abuser;
(2) prohibiting the abuser stalking, harassing or contacting the applicant as well as the close relatives;
(3) ordering the abuser to move out of the applicant’s domicile; etc.
If the abuser violates the habeas corpus, he or she will be prosecuted for administrative or criminal responsibility.
Obviously habeas corpus would limit one’s freedom so it requires enough evidence if applying for it. But the fact of domestic violence is difficult to be proved in practice, you should pay attention to the following tips which may be the strong evidence:
(1) inspection report or medical history;
(2) physical evidence of domestic violence such as blood-soaked clothes, the broken tooth, the pulled hair, the weapon abuser used, ect;
(3) the record you called the police or asked for help from the Women’ Federation, the neighborhood or villager committee and another bureau;
(4) the sound record or video about domestic violence;
(5) the written guarantee for no longer committing domestic violence made by the abuser;
(6) testimony from relatives, friends, neighborhood and so on.
Reported by China Daily, there is one woman beaten by her husband every 7.4 seconds averagely, and there are 157 thousands of women kill themselves every year, 60% of who are because of suffering domestic violence. But facing the violence, the woman may has been abused for 35 times averagely before she call the police. In Yuya incident, many netizen think the police ignore law and act negatively, but objectively speaking, nobody could predict everything and only those who sue for life could be saved. Once the abuser begins to act violently, he is likely to do so again, so at least yelling helping before asking.
