Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 3) — Women’s group Gabriela slammed the recent ruling of the Supreme Court (SC) on rape, which requires a “biologically accurate” description of what constitutes the criminal act.
“The ruling seems to favor more the perpetrators more than the victims,” Gabriela said Monday in a statement. “While providing greater protection for the accused, it potentially provides an even more agonizing prospect for victims who now will have to face the torment of debates over millimeters.”
Gabriela said the SC’s decision “which bases its arguments purely on anatomy, poses a danger for rape victims on technical grounds.”
“There are plenty of women who either do not possess vaginas as in the case of transgender women, women with undeveloped genitals, intersex women, and many more who may face the realities of sexual violence but who clearly would not even be considered rape victims under this ruling,” Gabriela said.
According to the SC ruling dated March 31, rape is executed with “the slightest penetration of the vulval or pudendal cleft, however minimum in degree.”
The need for using “straightforward language” was brought up following the 2017 conviction of a man who raped the daughter of his then live-in partner.
The SC said courts can determine penile penetration for child victims in pre-puberty, when the victim testifies that she feels pain in her genital area and when there is bleeding in her genitals.
The high court said it could also be determined when the labia minora is observed to be gaping or has redness or discolored, when the hymenal tags are no longer visible, or when the victim’s sex organ sustains an injury.
“By creating ‘gradations’ between ‘rape’ and ‘attempted rape’ on account of anatomical thresholds, the Supreme Court forgets that whether a woman is forced into acts of vaginal penetration, oral sex, or penetration through foreign objects, the point is that such acts constitute grave violation of the woman’s dignity,” Gabriela said.
According to the SC, the ruling is “necessary” to avoid deeming “all sexual assaults involving a penis and the vulva to only either be acts of lasciviousness or consummated rape, with no gradation of the attempted stage in between.”
