Update 5.30pm: Germany’s parliament has passed a new law defining rape, clarifying that “No means No”, even if a victim did not fight back. The new legislation makes it easier to deport foreign nationals convicted on sex charges.
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The subject came to the fore after a number of sex attacks on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve. German Justice Minister Heiko Mass said under the current law, victims must show they attempted to defend themselves for an action to qualify as rape.
Under the new law, prosecutors and courts can take into account that a victim didn’t resist assault because they were incapacitated, surprised or feared greater violence if they objected.
“In the past, there were cases where women were raped but the perpetrators couldn’t be punished”, German Minister for Women Manuela Schwesig said.
Conservative lawmakers had resisted changing the law until a string of attacks in Cologne during New Year’s sparked a fresh debate about sexual violence in Germany. It brings what critics call woefully lax legislation into line with that of many other developed countries, AFP says.
In the city of Cologne alone, 1,049 people were victims of attacks allegedly committed by men from North Africa and the Middle East on New Year’s Eve, with about 821 complaints being filed to police.
German parliament votes on draft law entitled “improving the protection of sexual self-determination”, in Berlin, on Thursday.
It immediately changed the law to make it easier to expel migrants and refugees convicted of crimes. However, at that time, it required proof of “violence, threats or physical endangerment” along with sexual crime, as well as a prison sentence of at least one year for an offender to be deported.
The new bill allows for the prosecution to treat members of groups that may not physically be involved in a sexual assault as rapists. Exactly 482 of the complaints reported sexual assaults, Die Welt reported on January 21.
Another case that shocked public opinion was that of the German model Gina-Lisa Lohfink, who presented a video of an assault against her in which she was saying “stop it, stop it” and “No”, but the two men who attacked her were acquitted. The measure was criticized as unworkable and possibly unconstitutional by legal experts.
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From voyeurism and exhibitionism to coercion and rape, the report prompted the local edition of the Bild tabloid to warn of immigrant men “swimming pool sex mobs”.
