OSLO, June 6 (Reuters) - Norway strengthened its rape laws on Friday by criminalising sex without explicit consent, joining a growing list of countries to widen the definition of sexual attacks. Up to now, prosecutors have had to show that an attacker used violence or threatening behaviour, or had sexual intercourse with someone who was unable to resist, to secure a conviction for rape.
Under the new law passed by parliament, anyone who has sex with someone who has not consented to it by word or deed could be convicted of rape, even without violence. Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland have all introduced consent-based rape laws in recent years. Sweden changed the legal definition of rape in 2018 to sex without consent - a change that officials said resulted in a 75% rise in rape convictions. Denmark followed in 2020 by passing a law that widened the circumstances that could constitute rape.
This is going to be tricky to implement.
It’s easy to prove rape, or any other sexual violence, as there would be wounds associated with it.
But what about coercion? Clearly if one can coerce a person to have sex, that person could also be made to lie or at least stay quiet.
Rape is generally hard to prove as there are generally two witnesses and one is lieing. we have sometimes discoverd evidente that the ‘victum’ did give concent and later regrets it but most of the time there is only evidence of sex and the two parties have a different story about what happened.
i have no answer to the problem. Rape is far too common but punishing an innocent isn’t the answer.
The defendant’s word has not the same “quality” as the witnesses word.
That’s an insane statement. Think about this in a legal context, wtf?
No, it is quite normal, legally.
I don’t know where you live, though.
While you are correct, in a rape case, there are no traditional witnesses. (Unless there are). There are perpetrators and victims, and defendants and plaintiffs. And a plaintiff’s word has not the same quality as a real witness’s word, either.