More than 400 demonstrators near Tokyo Station on April 11 protest recent district court rulings that found sex offenders not guilty. (Takuya Isayama)
Hundreds of people in Tokyo protested recent court rulings in which the judges recognized that rapes had occurred but allowed the perpetrators to walk because the victims could have offered more resistance.
At a rally called âStanding demonstration protesting sexual violence and sexual violence court rulingsâ near Tokyo Station on April 11, the demonstrators expressed disgust with the rulings and held signs that read â#MeToo,â âYes Means Yes!â and âGive judges an education on human rights and sex!â
âI am confounded and terrified by the not-guilty rulings,â said Minori Kitahara, a writer and activist. âI am afraid that victims of sexual abuse will not be able to raise their voices after such verdicts were given.â
The rulings in March by the Nagoya District Courtâs Okazaki branch and the Fukuoka District Courtâs Kurume branch both found the suspects not guilty of âquasi-forcible sexual intercourse.â
Under Japanese Criminal Law, sexual offenders cannot be punished only for committing non-consensual sex.
To win convictions on charges of forced sexual intercourse, prosecutors must prove that the attackersâ excessive violence or intimidation made it âextremely difficultâ for the victims to put up resistance.
In cases in which assailants rape victims who are unable to resist for reasons that include unconsciousness from drug or alcohol consumption, prosecutors apply charges of quasi-forced sexual intercourse.
To win guilty verdicts on this charge, prosecutors must show that the victims had an âincapacitation to resist.â
In the case before the Nagoya District Courtâs Okazaki branch, prosecutors argued that a daughter was incapable of resisting her fatherâs rapes because of his long history of violence and sexual abuse.
He was charged with quasi-forced sexual intercourse in relation to two attacks against his then 19-year-old daughter in Aichi Prefecture in 2017.
The court acknowledged that the daughter âdid not consentâ to sex with her father and that she had been sexually abused since she was a junior high school student.
The court also said the father used violence against the daughter shortly before he raped her.
But after describing the accusedâs acts of sexual abuse as âutterly unacceptable,â the court found him not guilty, saying the daughter âwas not in a state in which resisting her father was extremely difficult.â
The ruling added that the father-daughter relationship was not characterized as a strongly subservient one that forced her to blindly accept his authority.
The ruling sparked outrage from the public and many legal experts.
Hisashi Sonoda, a professor of criminal law at Konan Universityâs Law School in Kobe, called the court decision âunreasonable.â
âThe court acknowledged the fatherâs sexual abuse of the woman, but it found him not guilty because it did not recognize that he controlled every aspect of her personality,â said Sonoda, who is also a lawyer.
He also said the ruling is questionable in light of precedents that recognized the inability to resist from a psychological viewpoint.
During the trial, prosecutors submitted as evidence a written opinion of a psychiatrist who examined the daughter and concluded that her psychological condition put her in a state in which she could not resist his sexual assaults.
Akira Kitani, a lawyer who had long served as a criminal court judge, also criticized the district courtâs ruling.
âThe verdict is far from compelling,â he said. âThe human rights of the accused should be respected, and the ruling will not be able to gain the publicâs understanding.â
Prosecutors have appealed the courtâs decision.
The ruling was especially tough for victims of sexual abuse.
Jun Yamamoto, who leads the Spring organization of sexual abuse survivors, said the verdict showed the judgeâs utter lack of understanding about the mental condition of those who are abused.
Yamamoto had been sexually abused by her biological father for seven years since she was 13.
âThe court did not comprehend the impact on a victim who has been treated as a sex object by the very person who raises her,â she said. âMany people do not become aware that they are indeed victims of sexual abuse and instead try to adjust themselves to the circumstances.â
Yamamoto said the courtâs ruling also denied the victimâs efforts to raise her voice after breaking free from being a prisoner of abuse.
Courts generally do not recognize the crime of quasi-forced sexual intercourse unless the accused is shown to have purposely taken advantage of the victimâs loss of consciousness or inability to resist. This is based on principles of the Criminal Law in which an unintentional act cannot be punishable.
The âintentionâ to rape was at the center of dispute in a trial held at the Fukuoka District Courtâs Kurume branch in Fukuoka Prefecture.
The court acknowledged that the suspect raped an unconscious woman who had consumed a large amount of alcohol.
But he was found not guilty on March 12 because the court recognized circumstances that could have misled him into believing that the woman had given her consent. The ruling said that although she was too drunk to resist him, she was able to utter words and gave no clear rejection of his actions at the time.
Yerwun on April 17th, 2019 at 23:47 UTC »
Fucking hell. So this guy sexually and physically abuses his daughter for years and walks free? Because she didn't fight hard enough? Wtf? This case isn't even kind of ambiguous.
TheBananasIn on April 17th, 2019 at 21:57 UTC »
Jesus Christ. His crimes were recognized but they still found him not guilty because the determined the woman could have fought back a little bit more. WTF is wrong with this world.
sofyflo on April 17th, 2019 at 19:36 UTC »
"under Japanese Criminal Law, sexual offenders cannot be punished only for committing non-consensual sex"