Most people guilty of child sexual assault know their victims, according to a white paper released on Wednesday.

For the first time, the city’s high court, people’sprocuratorate, justice bureau, public security bureau and women’s federation together released a white paper on the judicial protection of women and children.

In 2019, city prosecutors handled 220 child sexual assault cases, involving 246 suspects.

Most perpetrators were acquaintances of their victims. Figures show neighbors account for about 24 percent, Internet friends for 13.5 percent, extracurricular class tutors 5.4 percent, school teachers and relatives 4.1 percent each, classmates and schoolmates 2.7 percent.

In May 2019, the city ordered nurseries, schools, training centers, medical institutions, child welfare houses and other organizations having contact with children to look into the sexual criminal history of potential employees. Sex offenders are prohibited to be recruited.

By the end of 2019, authorities had launched background checks on nearly 270,000 employees whose work involved contact with children, and found 26 had been convicted of sex crimes. They were fired.

“We found that sex offenders have large possibility to commit crimes again, and thus we impose employment restrictions on them,” said prosecutor GuChengcong.

However, it still has a long way to go to protect the underaged from sex offences.

“It’s hard to obtain evidence from young victims,”Gusaid. “In many cases, they just stay silent.”

One way to solve the problem, according toGu, is for prosecutors to intervene in cases earlier and work with police to obtain evidence.

“We go to police stations or hospitals where children receive medicalchecks, and talk with children. We try to get useful information as much as possible in just one visit because children can feel tortured by being asked to remember what happened again and again,”Gusaid.

Prosecutors will also send professionals to offer psychological counseling, financial aid and other help such as arranging children to transfer to other schools, she added.

To raise children’s awareness of sex offenses, more than 500 prosecutors have given lessons in more than 700 schools and taught children how to protect themselves.

“We hope to cover all schools by the end of this year, especially vocational schools and schools for children of migrant workers,”Gusaid.