Acting as doctors, three seven-year- old boys in a Chinese school sexually assaulted 23 boys and girls from their class inflicting injuries on several of them.
The three boys from a school in Southwest China's Yunnan Province acted as doctors conducting physical examinations on 13 boys and 10 girls, state-run Global Times reported.
The local education bureau in Longling county, however, said that it was not sexual assault and added that the three children "acted as doctors."
Such "examinations" happened three times inflicting injuries on private parts of four girls, who were treated at the First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University.
The Baoshan city bureau of education has asked the primary school, the only such school in Longling, to immediately look into the case.
The provincial Women's Federation yesterday said they would closely follow this issue.
All 26 students involved in the case are under seven years, which has triggered discussions on whether the boys' behaviour should be considered "sexual assault."
One of the victims, Tongtong, said she was accosted in the classroom by the three boys who used sticks to touch her private parts eight times between May and June during weekday noon breaks.
The students suffered from the assaults for one month, the newspaper quoted a local website as saying.
The three boys hailed from poor families.
Peng Xiaohui of the Central China Normal University told the daily that the boys probably did it out of curiosity, which cannot be classified as "sexual assault."
Gao Wei, head of the Yunnan University Law School, disagrees, although he said there may be a legal loophole.
"As a legal guardian of the three children, their parents are liable and might have to pay compensation," he said.
