Outrageous sexual harassment becomes common in Chinese weddings

Feb 16^th, a post in the Jinringuanzhu.net (a famous Canton newscast’s online forum) revealed a shockingly unpleasant incident happened during a wedding in Xinhui city, Canton province. 9 girls of the Sister’s troop (bridesmaids) were allegedly molested by the bridegroom’s escorting friends. The post was written by 6 of the victims with their own account of the sexual harassment at the day.

In the Chinese wedding custom, on the day of the wedding, the bridegroom and bride will have their own troop of friends as escorts. The bridegroom with his escorts needs to come to bride’s residence to receive her. But at the doorstep of the bride’s residence, the sister’s troop will guard the door and ask the bridegroom for Hongbao (auspicious amount of money wrapped in red paper bag) and pass some tests. Then the bridesmaids will let in the bridegroom. This is supposed to be an auspicious and blissful custom.

Bridegroom taking his test from the sister’s troop before receiving his bride

However, as described in the post, when the bridegroom’s escorts broke into the bride’s room, the terrified bridesmaids run for the washroom and locked the door. A bridesmaid who was too slow to get in the washroom was pinned down to the floor by the bridegroom’s male friends who grabbed her chest and even touched her private part. Then the bridegroom’s friends broke the washroom’s door and molested the girls inside. The molested girls cried and asked them to stop but in vain.

More shocking though, is that the relatives and the newlywed were right at the scene. They saw how the bridegroom’s friends molested the terrified bridesmaids and how the bridesmaid cried for help. But they didn’t stop the men nor interfere in any way. After the bridegroom’s friends done with their despicable practice, the newlywed continued the wedding ceremony as if nothing ever happened.

Now the victim bridesmaids already reported to the local police and still wait for further investigation. The newlywed tried to give the victims few hundred yuan for an out-of-court settlement, but was rejected by the victims, who protest angrily “They don’t treat us as human-being but like whore, with no dignity!” one of the victims said in the post that long after the incident, she still couldn’t fall asleep and had nightmares.

The post is followed by pages of comments. Unfortunately, from these comments, it turned out this unpleasant and exasperating practice is now popular in the region like Xinhui or the nearby cities. Many netizens claimed that they had or heard similar cases. Some of the comments translated as follow:

brianlv ip:113.109.131.* 2011-02-25 12:23:50

“呢D行为早几年系鹤山已经流传了好耐，搞到现在结婚的都没有人愿意当姐妹仔的了，潜规则.报警基本上没有用的，因为他们当中都有个人出头搞定的。建议下次有类似的事发生，被侵犯的团结起来，砸左部花车再报警，看他们怎么结婚，不搞次大事出来那些恶习是不会退的········”

“This kind of practice has been popular for a while. Consequently few are willing to be the bridesmaid in wedding. Report to the police won’t be any good, because eventually one of those guys will stand out and settle things down. I suggest next time this kind of thing happen, the victims should gather together, smash the wedding car and call the police…see how they can manage to marry…If you don’t make a big deal out of it, those despicable practices will never disappear…”

123 ip:113.78.69.* 2011-02-25 13:34:05

“上述所讲的事情。我都遇过一次。09年的时候。我去参加堂家姐的婚礼。我做伴娘。20几个姊妹。他们哪些根本是有意来侵犯我们的。

竟然遭到毒手的是新娘的亲妹妹。实在太可耻了。

当时我们都有话当场报警的。但是都是遭到男方的种种拒绝。

唉。实在太可怕了。、”

“I had that experience once too. It was in 2009, I was attending my cousin’s wedding. I was the bridesmaid. We had around 20 girls in the sister’s troop. Those guys came especially to molesting us. My cousin’s sister is the victim. How awful! We wanted to call the police at the time, but people from the bridegroom’s side refuse with all kinds of excuse. Oh, that’s an awful experience…”

The bridesmaid come to show their support and bless for the couple but are returned for such terrible treatment and the couple’s indifference to their dignity. Whoever commits such disgusting practice should definitely be punished by law. A happy wedding custom should by no means be taken advantage of by people with ill will and rendered into an opportunity to commit despicable behaviors. I don’t know who to blame, the victim who keeps silent or the police who let this kind of practice rife in a city.