Government under pressure to extend rape definition to include prostitution
Scottish Ministers are considering proposals to extend the definition of rape to include those who work in enforced prostitution.
Pressure for change has come from the group Rape Crisis Scotland (RCS) and comes in response to the government's consultation on its new Sexual Offences Bill.
The proposals for the bill, due to be voted on this spring, have been drawn up by the Scottish Law Commission and for the first time clearly define the concept of consent as ‘free agreement.'
This definition of consent has lead RCS, which provides support to victims of rape, to argue that women who have been forcibly trafficked into the sex industry do not willingly agree to sex and thus such acts should be defined as rape.
Sex trafficking is an issue in Scotland as elsewhere in Europe, and police have recently found more than 30 women working in Scotland under conditions of enforced prostitution.
A briefing paper issued by RCS states: “Circumstances in which the complainer had been trafficked for purposes of prostitution should also, we feel, be included as a situation where consent is absent, and the intercourse in question therefore constitutes rape.”
Sandy Brindlay, national co-ordinator for organisation, told The Scotsman: “Men who use trafficked women for sex are sometimes aware the woman doesn’t want to go through with it. In those circumstances, it’s obvious the woman isn’t consenting to sex.
"Men who have sex with women who have been trafficked are committing rape.”
However, some legal experts have expressed concern over this proposal, arguing that it would be unworkable. The biggest problem would be that a perpetrator could claim ignorance of the fact that the woman in question was a victim of trafficking.
Despite campaigning for changes to the prostitution law, the independent MSP Margo MacDonald has called the proposal by the organisation “impossible."
She told The Scotsman: "[The women] may have been trafficked and have paid to come to Britain, and some know they are going to work as prostitutes. You could hardly bring a [rape] charge if the woman has come to work in the sex industry in this country."
Other recommendations by the Commission include the redefinition of rape to protect men, as well as women, and the creation of lengthier sentences for sexual offences carried out towards under 13s than those towards 13 to 16 year-old victims.
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