Life-long accountability for VAWC offenders
Senator Imee Marcos has proposed to extend legal deadlines for filing cases of rape and other forms of violence against women and children.
In her Senate Bill 1535, which seeks to amend Section 24 of Republic Act 9262 or the Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act of 2004, and in Article 90 of the Revised Penal Code, the time limit to sue major VAWC offenders will be “imprescriptible.”
“Despite the country’s unwavering efforts to develop effective legislation, inequities in power — economic, social, financial — persist,” Marcos said.
“Victims should be given more time to come out publicly. The personal trauma and the social stigma attached to reporting VAWC offenses cannot be underestimated,“she explained.
Under present laws, state prescriptive periods of 10 to 20 years for various degrees of VAWC offenses and their corresponding penalties.
Marcos asserted that those who commit major VAWC offenses should be held accountable for the rest of their lives, especially if they are either a parent, step-parent, ascendant, guardian, or relative within the fourth degree of consanguinity or affinity.
Major VAWC offenders are also defined as persons of authority, influence, or moral ascendancy in work, training, or education environments involved.
According to Marcos’ bill, major VAWC offenses that should be made imprescriptible when a victim’s next of kin, custodians, or a person in authority is involved include attempted or consummated rape, causing or attempting to cause a woman or child to engage in sexual activity not constituting rape, causing or threatening to cause physical harm, depriving or threatening to deprive a mother of custody of her child or of ample financial support for her child, and denying a woman her right to work or controlling her money or personal and conjugal property.
The SB 1535 also extends the prescriptive period from 10 to 20 years when the same offenders commit lighter VAWC crimes like stalking, peering, entering a dwelling against a woman’s will, destroying her property, verbal and emotional abuse, and public ridicule of a woman or child.
The senator’s call to amend the prescriptive periods on VAWC crimes coincides with this year’s global campaign to end violence against women, which continues until 10 December.
The Philippines has extended its national campaign until 12 December, which marks the historic signing in 2000 of the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons.