County official tied to high school prostitution ring

A delegate with a county people's congress in Shaanxi province has been implicated in a high school prostitution scandal in which businessmen allegedly sought virgins to use as "bribes" to win contracts from officials, mainland media reported.

The incident came to light in September when a doctor in Wuqi county in Yanan city told local media he had treated five girls who had been severely beaten by classmates. No motive was reported at the time.

But parents of the girls said they were attacked because they had refused to sell their virginity, the Legal Weekly reported on Wednesday. Local businessmen and officials were behind the deal, and one of the attackers had 1.2 million yuan (HK$1.51 million) in her bank account, while another girl had 800,000 yuan, the parents said.

The county congress said police had confirmed that Qi Jingtao, who is also chief of Loufangzhang village,  was involved in the incident and was suspected of introducing the pupils to prostitution.

According to a police statement in late October, a gang of seven girls forced the girls to strip naked and took photos of them. The abuse lasted for six hours and girls who resisted were threatened with a knife.

The assailants told the girls their virginity would be sold for 5,000 yuan, with the victims allowed to keep 2,000 yuan, according to the parents.