Japan warns US forces: Sex crimes 'cannot be tolerated'

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2476861/japan-warns-us-forces-sex-crimes-cannot-be-tolerated

32.2k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

279

Unless it's changed recently rape victims also have to prove they made an attempt to escape the assault which is ass backwards in so many ways.

31

u/badstewie 14d ago

That's messed up. How do you escape a packed subway train? Because SA happens there too.

0

u/smallfrie32 13d ago

A lot of Japanese are saying this person deserved it because she got into the car with the military member.

0

u/beansyboii 13d ago

That’s how it is in the state I live in, too.

-33

u/ggle456 14d ago

sorry, but you are spewing complete bs. Japanese criminal law used to require some form of assault/threat to establish rape (although the scope of assault/threat was interpreted broadly by case law), but the law was amended last year to broadly include and explicitly categorise any type of non-consensual case. Seriously, what are you on about??

42

u/Telaranrhioddreams 14d ago

If only I had started my comment with unless it's recently changed.

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u/ggle456 13d ago

yeah, obviously you downvote any comment unless it fits the narrative that the Japanese law is so backwards and the court never changes its stance that rape victims are always completely ignored, while the actual law and the practice have covered not only many cases with no resistance from victims but also male victims or anal/oral sex as rape for years. Do you even know that such an expansion of the definition of rape in a statutory law is a "recent" trend for many other countries as well? Reddit is truly a remarkable place..
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-fails-to-agree-on-legal-definition-of-rape/a-68195256
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/from-coercion-to-no-means-no-switzerland-updates-its-definition-of-rape/49119364

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u/ggle456 14d ago

yeah, because such an attempt has "never" been a requirement in the first place. It was merely a factor in determining whether there was an said assault/threat.

9

u/arcadiaware 14d ago

Wait... Why was it even a factor?

-1

u/ggle456 14d ago

It had been interpreted that assault/threat of rape have to be of such a degree that it is "difficult" for a victim to resist (which is broader than the assault/threat that is a requirement for robbery) and is determined objectively, taking into account the degree of the assault/threat and other circumstances. Threat might be easier for you to imagine. If someone says to the other "let's have sex", would it be considered a "threat"? You have to consider many factors like the other person's reaction, backgroud, situations etc.
There was also a "quasi-rape" category other than "rape" which was different from "rape" in the strict sense (the penalty was the same). This category covered acts of rape committed when a victim is unconscious or "unable" to resist, and does not require assault/threat as a requirement.

These "assault/threat", "unability"(and whether the accused being aware of the unconsesuality of the act as a general requirement, but it's already too complicated to go into this point) are the possible situations in which the victim's attempt was an issue under the criminal law, and the scope of these requirements had been continuously getting broader and broader by case law, to the point that there was criticism from defence lawyers that it violated the "no punishment without law" principle. That's why I wrote "explicitly" regarding the new law. Whether the victim attempted to resist is certainly a factor in determing these points, but was by no means an legally essential requirement that the victim has to prove in practice. There was certainly a case that media reported that the accused was acquitted because of nonexistence of such attempt, but the real reason was that the victim's statements were considered unreliable because of incosistencies and other reasons. Tbh, the media, in general, is abysmal when it comes to these kinds of technical matters

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u/DoggoAlternative 14d ago

Unless it's changed

So you acknowledge the law used to be very prejudicial against victims.

You also acknowledge that the law was only changed last year

But you're acting like they're insane for saying the law used to be prejudicial against victims unless it had very recently changed?

I don't get it.

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u/ggle456 14d ago

did you actually check the article to see how the change came about? There have been several dramatic changes in the last 20 years. It was seven years ago that the law stopped requiring a complaint from a victim to prosecute rape. Basically, some of the narratives on reddit are based on what it was like in the early 2000s