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China is considered a progressive country when it comes to juvenile justice, but several high-profile killings have prompted calls for stricter laws for juveniles.
By Vivian Wang
Report from Beijing
For almost two years, Gong Junli has been waiting. Since her 8-year-old daughter, Xinyue, was stabbed multiple times and her body was dumped in a poplar forest in northwest China, imagine her killer finally brought to justice.
But justice is when the accused is also a child.
The boy who police say killed Xinyue was thirteen years old at the time. When his trial begins on Wednesday, he will try to answer a question that has troubled Chinese society: How does China treat young people accused of heinous crimes?
Countries around the world have long struggled to find a balance between punishment and forgiveness for children. But the debate is especially vital in China, where a history of relative leniency toward young offenders contrasts sharply with the limited rights of adult defendants. For decades, the government has focused on educating and rehabilitating young offenders rather than incarcerating them.
But recently a negative reaction has appeared. Following a series of high-profile child murders in recent years, many Chinese have called for the country to be tougher. And the government responded. The Xinyue homicide is one of the first known cases to go to trial since the government lowered the age at which youths can be prosecuted for murder and other serious crimes from 14 to 12.
Several incidents this year have reignited the debate. In January, police in central China dropped charges against a boy accused of killing a 4-year-old woman by pushing her into a manure tank because she was under 12 and too young to stand trial. Chinese media reported. In March, police said three 13-year-old boys near the city of Handan, also in central China, dug a grave in a deserted greenhouse, took a classmate there and killed him. The children were charged in a while later.
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