A Chinese woman who filed a sexual misconduct lawsuit against a TV host told cheering supporters at a courthouse yesterday that she hopes her case will encourage victims of gender violence in a system that gives them few options to pursue complaints.
Zhou Xiaoxuan spoke ahead of a trial in her lawsuit, which was delayed for two years and reflects the challenges Chinese women face in pursuing sexual misconduct complaints despite the spread of the global #MeToo movement.
Zhou, 27, has accused Zhu Jun, a popular state TV host, of forcibly kissing her in 2014. She is asking for a public apology as well as 50,000 yuan ($7,600) in damages.
Zhu has denied the accusation and filed a defamation case against Zhou.
“Even if ultimately in this case we don’t get a legal win, as long as we can show to a lot of people (that) there are people like me, those of us who are victims of gender violence, that’s already a type of win,” Zhou said outside the Haidian District People’s court in Beijing.
The movement took off in 2018 in China when a college student in Beijing publicly accused her professor of sexual misconduct. MDT/AP
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