ZTE executive accused of years-long sexual abuse by foster daughter

ZTE executive Bào Yùmíng 鲍毓明 has been accused by his foster daughter of long-term sexual abuse.

A heart-wrenching story of a teenage girl being subjected to long-term sexual abuse by her foster father has gripped China, and led to an avalanche of reactions calling for justice for the alleged victim. Per Sixth Tone:

According to a report [in Chinese] Thursday from Guangzhou-based media outlet South Reviews, the mother of the alleged victim entrusted her daughter to Bào Yùmíng 鲍毓明, a high-ranking director at two large companies, in November 2015. He started raping her a month later, when she was just 14 years old, the report said.

The victim, identified by the pseudonym Xingxing, told South Reviews that Bao forced her to watch child pornography, made her remove her clothes before bed, kept her from going to school, and limited her contact with anyone other than him. He told her all of these things were “normal” between a girl and her father, according to the report.

Since the news started making the rounds on social media on April 9, three institutions that Bao worked for — Chinese telecom firm ZTE, Yantai Jierui Oil Services Company, and Southwest University of Political Science and Law — announced that they had terminated their contractual agreements with Bao.

The punishment, however, didn’t do much to quell the public furor over Bao’s heinous behavior. Many people called for legal actions to be taken against the perpetrator, saying that Bao would easily get away with his crimes and find a new position in other companies if no criminal charges were filed.

A number of social media users also took issue with the police in Beijing and Yantai, who ignored the victim’s allegations multiple times in the past few years. The indifference and mishandling regarding Bao’s case, according to them, was emblematic of a long-standing and rampant problem of how China’s law enforcement agencies systematically fail sexual assault victims seeking justice.