Foreigner suspected of child abuse

A foreign teacher has been arrested on suspicion of molesting a kindergarten student in Qingdao in east China’s Shandong Province, local prosecutors said.

He is alleged to have been molesting the student during noon break in the kindergarten in January.

After speaking to the child, her parents contacted the police, according to the procuratorate of Shibei District, The Beijing News reported.

On Thursday, thePaper.cn said the kindergarten was the Beijing RYB Qingdao Vanke City Kindergarten.

On Friday, RYB Education, a preschool education company registered in China, said on its website that the teacher, who was only identified as Daniel, was a Colombian national born in 1984. He has a work visa and is qualified to work as a teacher.

A surveillance video is said to show the teacher putting his hands under the girl's quilt for about a minute after the classroom assistant had left to go to the toilet. When the assistant returned, the teacher left. 

The kindergarten and the girl’s parents checked the videos on January 28 and contacted RYB and the police. 

The teacher was apprehended by police the following day. 

RYB said the girl was uninjured and was back at school.

The kindergarten said it had strict rules about each class having two teachers on duty at all times. 

It said the principal of the kindergarten and the classroom assistant had been removed from their posts.

The local education bureau has launched an inspection of all kindergartens and the measures they take to ensure the safety of students. 

In December last year, a kindergarten teacher was sentenced to 18 months in prison for child abuse.

A court in Beijing found Liu Yanan, a teacher at the RYB Education New World Kindergarten in the capital’s Chaoyang District, used needles to hurt four children in November 2017.

Liu was banned from working in the juvenile nursing and education fields for five years.

The court said her behavior had severely damaged the physical and mental health of the children.

According to RYB’s website, as of September 30, 2017, there were 290 kindergartens and 917 play-and-learn centers in operation in its network, covering 307 cities and towns in China.