Photo/Illutration A wave of “flower demonstrations” seeking to eliminate sex crimes spreads nationwide. Demonstrators called for the adoption of a legal provision that would make sexual intercourse without consent a crime. A scene from a flower demonstration photographed in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward in March 2021. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Sex crimes in Japan are sometimes referred to as “tamashii no satsujin,” which translates as “murder of the soul,” because victims suffer deep mental anguish as well as physical scars.

Many sex offenses never come to light and even when they do, steps taken by victims for legal redress often fail to result in criminal liability. There is a pressing need to ensure that all kinds of sex crimes are duly punished.

The Justice Ministry on Oct. 24 presented a draft of legal revisions to deal with sex crimes to a working group of the Legislative Council reviewing criminal law provisions concerning sexual offenses.

As the law stands, a forced sexual act without consent per se is not a punishable crime. Only “forced sexual intercourse” involving violence and intimidation by the offender is recognized as a criminal act. In legal cases of this nature, a key issue invariably revolves around whether the victim put up sufficient resistance. In reality, however, many victims are unable to fight off the attack because they are too traumatized and physically weaker. Flaws in the legal provisions have long been noted.

The draft would expand the scope of sex offenses by including acts where the victim finds it impossible to ward off an attack. They include, for instance, surprise attacks that terrorize or shock victims or situations where people like employers and teachers take advantage of their positions to mount an assault. The same criteria would be applied to the crime of indecent assault.

The ministry is taking a step in the right direction by seeking to widen the definition of sex crimes to cover cases that usually fall through the cracks in response to the reality that many victims have no say in the matter.

But the draft will not go as far as to adopt a simple and clear stipulation that “any sexual intercourse without consent is a crime,” a step demanded by citizens groups and which some countries have already adopted. The ministry argued it would blur the boundaries of criminality. The argument makes sense because it is difficult to determine objectively whether there was consent.

A forced sexual act is a serious violation of sexual freedom and constitutes the core of sex crimes. The ministry should consider additional measures to clarify that such acts are punishable crimes.

Another urgent legal challenge is to ensure effective and meticulous responses to cases of sex conduct or sexual abuse involving children who may not be able to immediately grasp what has been done to them.

Currently, indecent conduct with a minor younger than 13 is deemed to be a crime, whether there was consent or not. The draft proposed to apply this provision to cases where minors aged 13 or older but younger than 16 are subjected to such behavior by an individual five or more years older.

The ministry also proposed to criminalize the act of grooming minors younger than 16. Grooming refers to actions that sexual predators take to gain access to their victims.

Grooming is a type of behavior that can lead to serious sex crimes but it is not generally widely understood. Broad public debate on this issue is key.

Many of the revisions proposed by the ministry are based on pleas by victims and their supporters following revisions to the criminal law in 2017 to mete out harsher punishment against sex offenses. A series of court rulings on sex crime cases handed down after the revision acquitted the defendants, provoking a wave of protests. Clearly, the government and the Diet failed to respond quicky enough.

Making all types of sexual abuse and other unacceptable sexual acts punishable crimes will help prevent sex crimes. The onus to plug legal holes concerning sex crimes is on the working group of the Legislative Council.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 26

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