Legal rape.
Posted on 06/15/2013 | By Chris Gale
This situation. Should. Not. Happen.
Never.
For boys. Or girls. If the perpetrator was a man (and I have seen more than one young girl have a kid before 13) then the man should be and is charged and is incarcerated. But the woman is getting a pass: this is (if the facts are as reported) legal rape.
Case prompts minister to ask why women can’t be charged with rape
An 11-year-old boy fathered a child after sex with a school friend’s 36-year-old mother.
Both the father and child are now understood to be in care after the principal at the boy’s school raised the alarm.
The case has caused counsellors working in the area of child sexual abuse to highlight the lack of attention given to women as potential offenders.
It has prompted Justice Minister Judith Collins to step in saying she will seek more information on the law. “This case raises an important point. I will seek advice from officials on whether or not a law change is required.”
And it has also highlighted disparity in the law of rape, which makes it impossible for a woman to be accused of the crime.
The article says that in NZ law a woman cannot be charged with rape (max. sentence 20 years) but can be charged with sexual violation (max. sentence 14 years). These cases are messy, and the law needs revision. In the meantime, the school and child welfare are concerned, appropriately, about both children — the 11 year old father of the child and the babe carried by the 36 year old mother.
And, given that Judith “Crusher” Collins is the minister of justice, the law will probably be rewritten.
