Gov't to toughen child sex law

In a press conference held by the Garden of Hope Foundation and the Justice Reform Foundation, Judicial Yuan Secretary-General Shen Shou-ching said they have already sent a letter to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) to amend and update the Criminal Code.

The amendments explicitly state that anyone who has sex with children under the age of seven has committed rape, Shen said, adding that it obliterates the question of whether the child has offered consent or if he or she showed signs of resistance. The rape charge carries a minimum of seven years imprisonment.

While it might be obvious that a child of that age would become helpless when coerced into sexual activity, Taiwan judges have recently — and often, in the past — given light sentences to child molesters based on the fact that the victim did not show any sign of resistance, or that they displayed faulty memories regarding the time and place of the crime.

The civic foundations cited this as examples of how divorced from reality the Taiwan judiciary had become, adding it was time to overthrow the prehistoric court.

The drastic measures are the fruit of protestations against the recent string of court rulings, which favored the pedophile perpetrators.

The most high profile case occurred last week in Kaohsiung County, when three judges gave a man surnamed Lin three years and two months imprisonment for molesting a six-year-old girl.

Another case made it to the Taiwan Supreme Court, yet the judge was unable to find perpetrator Lai guilty of raping a three-year-old girl due to the prosecutors' inability to prove that the act was against the girl's wishes. The case was returned to the Taiwan High Court for retrial.

In the most disturbing case, the alleged child molester was found not guilty for raping a two-year-old girl due to the fact that there was a slight discrepancy between the time of rape as recalled by the toddler and that determined by a physician.

In similar areas in need of reform, Shen cited the provisos in Chapter 16 of the Criminal Code, known as “offenses against sexual autonomy,” as neither thorough nor sufficiently encompassing enough to serve as the basis on which most sex crimes are judged. This has created a huge gap between the law and common perception of justice, he said.

Civic foundations and child welfare groups yesterday presented three demands for the Ministry of Justice; firstly, to speedily approve the Judicial Yuan amendments and conduct thorough evaluations of all presiding judges, dismissing those found unsuitable for the position of justice; secondly, to create a system involving an official panel of expert witnesses who can evaluate the young victims' state of mind and help them articulate their thoughts in court.

The experts, who may be doctors, psychiatrists or scholars, can also hold judges accountable for their rulings. Lastly, the groups pushed for counseling services and aid to be available for victims of abuse.

Studies have shown that children who suffer sexual abuse require at least two years of counseling in order to come to terms with their ordeal. Spokespersons for the Garden of Hope Foundation warned that victims could become numbed if they are not treated psychologically.

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