Many Youths In The Dark Over Statutory Rape Says Activist

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Srividhya Ganapathy of the Child Rights Innovation and Betterment Foundation says a ‘sweetheart defence’ has been proposed for youths charged with statutory rape.PUTRAJAYA: Many youths are ignorant that it is an offence under the Penal Code to have sex with girls aged 16 years and below, a child activist said.
Srividhya Ganapathy, the co-chair of the Child Rights Innovation and Betterment (CRIB) Foundation, said this was partly due to the reluctance of the government to introduce “comprehensive sex and sexuality education” in the school curriculum.
“I have met youths in correctional facilities for statutory rape who confessed that they had been unaware that consensual sex with underaged girls is statutory rape,” the lawyer told FMT.
Srividhya said feedback obtained from other interest groups also revealed that children as early as 10 years old were engaged in sexual activities.
Srividhya Ganapathy.She said her foundation and other NGOs had proposed that a “sweetheart defence” be made available to male children and youths charged with statutory rape in cases where they had been in genuine relationships and had engaged in consensual sex.
She also said such a defence could come into effect where it was clear that there was a genuine relationship between the parties, and the age difference was four years or less.
“Sad to say, this requires legislative intervention. We are still pushing for this to avoid exactly this kind of situation,” she said, stressing that neither she nor her foundation were promoting free sex by pushing for the “sweetheart defence”.
“We are not promoting free sex, please understand that. However, there is a need to respond to what is taking place on the ground.”
Srividhya was responding to a Court of Appeal ruling on Monday where a former food stall employee had his 10-year jail term reduced to five, and the order to cane him once was set aside.
This resulted in the youth, now 23, walking out a free man – after one-third remission for good behaviour – as he had been in prison since 2017.
Then 19, he was found guilty of statutory rape for having consensual sex with a girl who was then 15 years and four months old.
A three-member bench, in allowing his appeal against sentence, took into consideration that he was a youthful offender and that there was no element of violence.
In commending the judges for tempering justice with mercy, Srividhya said it would be destructive to hold a young man long in prison custody.
“Their prime years are wasted behind detention or prison walls and they could graduate to commit other serious crimes because of the exposure they get during their stay there,” she said.
She said the prosecution could also use its discretion to not charge genuine cases of such nature though police should conduct an investigation once a report was lodged.
“The lives of many youths are destroyed when they are dragged to the courts and finally to the prisons,” she said, adding that the names of offenders were also registered under the Child Sexual Offenders’ list. - FMT

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