Leading non-profit organization Guangzhou Gender and Sexuality Education Center (GSEC) shut its doors on December 6, according to an announcement on their official WeChat account. The notice, translated by the folks over at SupChina, reads:
“The Guangzhou Gender and Sexuality Education Center has ceased operations effective December 6, 2018. This account will no longer publish articles starting today. The remaining tips and donations received by this WeChat account will be used for assisting victims of sexual violence. We are grateful for you support and encouragement regarding our anti-sexual harassment work in the past few years.”
GSEC, which was founded back in 2016, is hailed in a SupChina article as a “leading non-profit organization in China dedicated to combating sexual violence and promoting gender equality.”
Details are scarce at the moment as to why the organization has ceased operations, but SupChina points out non-profit groups working on women’s issues have found themselves under increasing government scrutiny.
GSEC found itself in hot water earlier this year, after taking donations on a crowdfunding site to conduct a survey on sexual assault at Chinese higher education institutions. According to a report on Baidu by Curiosity Daily, the organization’s funding page was removed four times within the first 38 days of 2018.
Despite this, according to SupChina, the group was able to conduct their survey and their final report showed that a whopping 75 percent of current and former female college students have experienced sexual harassment.
Another study previously undertaken by GSEC exposed the prevalence of sexual harassment in the Chinese media business. Their findings indicated that 80 percent of female journalists are victims of workplace sexual harassment, according to SupChina.
GSEC’s closure comes roughly a week after the Shenzhen People’s Procurator revealed some alarming statistics, which show that the number of child sexual abuse cases at educational institutions in Shenzhen reached 14 between January and October of this year.
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[Cover image via Pixabay]
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