JUSTICE MINISTER KEN SAITO (LEFT) RECEIVES PROPOSALS FROM JUSTICE MINISTRY PANEL REVIEWING SEX CRIME LEGISLATION. THE JAPAN TIMES.
Japan's Justice Ministry is considering a proposal to raise the country's age of consent from 13 to 16.
The proposal forms part of a wider set of revisions to the country's penal code following accusations that Japanese law fails to protect people, and especially children, from sex crimes.
- The proposal seeks to widen the definition of rape and criminalize the grooming of minors.
- Current Japanese law will not convict an alleged sexual abuser unless their victim can prove that it was "impossible to resist" their advances.
- The proposal keeps the law's current wording but seeks to take into account factors such as intoxication and psychological control.
- Justice Ministry official Yusuke Asanuma noted that the change is not meant to make it "easier or harder" for victims to secure convictions, but to ensure that verdicts become "more consistent."
- A series of rape acquittals in 2019 prompted public outrage in Japan.
- In one of the cases, a man was acquitted of sexually abusing his own daughter on the grounds that the court could not definitively conclude that it was "extremely difficult" for her to resist her father's advances.
- A higher court later overturned the decision and the man was sentenced to prison for 10 years.
- Japan currently has the lowest age of consent among G7 countries.
