118 men detained for sexually harassing women in Beijing subway

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The “Wolf Hunt Squad”, a police task force in Beijing, have punished since May more than 30 men for sexually harassing women on the Beijing subway.

The task force comes after a campaign was launched last June 2017 to crack down on the offense, The Beijing News reported via The South China Morning Post last July 1, following a slew of complaints from women. 

Since its conception, the “Wolf Hunt Squad” has apprehended around 118 offenders. It was reported that the groping usually happens during peak hours when the trains are packed, making physical contact with other commuters impossible to avoid.

Liu Dapeng, a police officer with the “Wolf Hunt Squad” task force, shared how he and his fellow police officers apprehended a suspect last Friday, June 29. The incident happened in the subway station near the Communication University of China.

“[The man] deliberately stood between two women [and] took advantage of the crowds during the morning peak hour,” Dapeng was quoted as saying.

He also shared that he and his colleagues followed the suspect around for 15 minutes and filmed his actions so they can have evidence to support a charge against him. They then took the suspect to the police station and detained him.

“You could tell by the way he behaved it was not a spur of the moment thing,” Liu said in the report.

The task force in combatting sexual harassment comes absolutely necessary, and has been expanded to about 20 teams across the capital. There are still complaints, however, that the Chinese government is not doing enough in solving the problem of sexual harassment in public spaces.

In one such case, a group of feminists from Guangzhou last year raised 40,000 yuan ($6,000) for an advertising campaign about sexual harassment. The campaign was supposed to be shown in various subway stations, but was blocked by authorities. Cody Cepeda/JB

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