Expand rape definition to protect boys, says Children’s Advocate
THERE IS an ongoing debate over the cultural and health merits of keeping buggery on the books or whether to classify it as rape. Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison said that she would allow Parliament, “in its wisdom”, to resolve.
“Our proposal,” she said, “is that there be an amendment to the definition of rape within limits to cover the protection of boys.”
NEW OFFENCE
As an example, she pointed to Trinidad and Tobago, which she said has retained buggery but which has established a new offence called sexual penetration of a child. The offence is defined
GORDON HARRISON
as the insertion of any body part or any object into a child’s bodily orifice or the insertion of a part of a child’s body into a person’s bodily orifice.
It is gender neutral, Harrison said, and “it covers both boys and girls being potential victims, and it would capture females being charged with that kind of exploitation”.
But Chuck was insistent. “When you look at the definition of rape, if you take it too broadly, it becomes meaningless. That’s my view. Instead of calling it rape, you just call it a sexual offence or assault.
“Any sexual assault is rape because that is effectively what the definition is looking at. You go further to say, if you use any part of your body, or if you use an instrument to penetrate any orifice, it is rape. How does that make sense?” In other words, Chuck added, with a chuckle, “if you use an instrument to put in a person’s nose, that can’t make sense!”
Government Senator Dr Saphire Longmore said that while the examples might be funny, they were “actual occurrences”.
Mark Golding, an opposition senator, noted that Jamaica has a grievous sexual assault provision that covers a “whole wide range of deviant sexual conduct”.
In February, Chuck gave instructions to a law-reform team to come up with the “perfect definition” of rape after the committee heard submissions from United Nations representatives here who recommended that rape be defined as “against any person”, which includes men and boys, as well as covering “other penetrative practices”.