Police urged to take domestic violence more seriously

National legislators called on people from on all walks of life, especially police, to attach more importance to domestic violence, keep accurate records of related emergency calls and offer stronger protection for victims.

Public security departments should pay close attention to such cases and make greater efforts to resolve them instead of simply regarding them as family affairs, said Fang Yan, a deputy to the National People's Congress, China's top legislature.

"Police snubbing reports from those who suffer from domestic violence is neither good for evidence gathering, nor does it help solve the problem," Fang, a lawyer from Shaanxi province, said during the fourth session of the 13th NPC, which concluded on Thursday.

Tan Lin, another NPC deputy, agreed. She told Legal Daily that public security authorities need to improve their professionalism in handling cases involving domestic violence, suggesting they add a statistic specifically to keep track of such cases in their 110 emergency reporting system.

"The special statistic will motivate police officers to better adhere to their law enforcement duties and help us understand more about domestic violence situations nationwide," the newspaper quoted Tan, a former vice-chairwoman of the All-China Women's Federation, as saying.

Domestic violence is a hot topic that often triggers public outrage when cases are exposed.

To help prevent it, China adopted its Anti-Domestic Violence Law in late 2015, and it took effect in March the following year. According to the law, victims of domestic violence are allowed to apply for personal safety orders-similar to restraining orders in the West-in courts, and police are required to stop the violence as quickly as possible and issue warnings to perpetrators.

But tragedies have still happened.

In September, for example, the home of Lamu, a Tibetan livestreaming host in Sichuan province, was set on fire by her ex-husband, and she died 16 days later from serious burns. Lamu, who had long been a victim of domestic violence, had divorced in June.

Fang said evidence in some cases was insufficient to prove domestic violence, so police had to tackle them as mediators rather than making arrests.

But she also said that domestic violence sometimes occurs because police are either unaware of the seriousness of particular cases, often thinking of them as private family matters, or because they fail to intervene in a timely manner.

While urging police to take the initiative in recording and handling such cases, Fang added that there is an urgent need to provide them with a clearer guideline on what situations merit the issuing of a warning.

Xu Ping, an NPC deputy from Chengdu, Sichuan, suggested that more social organizations should work with government agencies to fight domestic abuse by providing more extensive aid, the Procuratorial Daily newspaper reported.