Guidelines will do little to stop China's child sex assaults, experts say

A comprehensive government plan to prevent child molestation in schools was a decent gesture, but unlikely to reduce widespread sexual abuse of children, experts and parents say.

The plan, issued by four central government departments including the education ministry and police on Tuesday, goes some way to addressing the problem, they say. But new guidelines, such as barring men including fathers and teachers from entering girls' dormitories without a dorm counsellor's consent, failed to address the real causes of the problem and identify children most at risk.

The plan also urged schools to promote awareness of sexual abuse of pupils, and warned that local government departments would be punished for dereliction of duty if there were several child molestation cases in their jurisdictions.

The plan follows public anger over numerous high-profile child sexual abuse cases this year. Dozens of cases have come to light since May, when a principal and government official in Wanning city, Hainan , were convicted of taking Primary Six girls to hotel rooms for sex.

Several middle schools in Beijing and Hangzhou contacted by the South China Morning Post said they were only just learning about the plan. Some teachers did not know it existed.

Many experts and parents doubted that the new orders would really make things better.

Li Ying , deputy director of the Women's Law Studies and Legal Aid Centre at Peking University, said simply banning men from girls' dormitories would not stop assaults, because in many cases it occurred elsewhere.