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Chinese Jurists Propose Criminal Penalty on "Sexual Bribery"
Chinese legal experts proposed to amend the country's criminal code to include "sexual service" to Party and government officials as a crime of bribery, the Beijing-based China Youth Daily reported Thursday, December 7.
Cases of sex being used to officials for illicit gains have been on the rise in recent years, and sexual bribery, like monetary and material bribes, is eroding the normal government conducts and jeopardizing society, it said.
It has been discovered that some illegal elements are using women or have even "bought expensive prostitutes" to bribe government officials in an effort to force the public servants to abuse power for their illicit benefits, the newspaper said.
According to the newspaper, a provincial-level official accepted "sexual bribe" from a woman and promised to make her head of the provincial government's representative office in Hong Kong. However, the woman's brother videotaped their sexual act and used the tape to coerced this official to assist him in committing crimes of smuggling and other crimes.
"'Sexual bribery' sometimes is even more powerful than monetary and material bribes, and has effects that others don't have," it said, quoting 32-year-old Jin Weidong, a post-graduate law student of Nanjing University.
"The strong allure usually leads to more severe and continuous jeopardy to society by causing corruption, loss of state properties and deterioration of government functions," he said.
However, the existing criminal codes in China confines the definition of the bribery crime to monetary and material offers, those sexual bribers were left at large.
An amendment to include sexual bribery in the crime of bribery is urgently needed in the fight against corruption and the drive to build a clean and honest government, he said.
"Non-monetary and non-material interests" have already been included in the punishment of bribery in many countries in Europe, North America and other Asian countries, he argued.
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