BERLIN: German lawmakers passed a bill Thursday that will make it easier for victims of sex crimes to file criminal complaints if they rejected their attacker’s advances with a clear “no.”
The move was partly spurred by a nationwide outcry over a string of sexual assaults that happened in the western city of Cologne over New Year’s.
German law previously required victims to show that they physically resisted attack before charges for rape and other sexual assaults could be brought. Women’s rights campaigners argued that Germany’s failure to recognize the principle of “no means no” was one of the main reasons for low reporting and conviction rates for rape in the country.
“In the past, there were cases where women were raped but the perpetrators couldn’t be punished,”
German Minister for Women Manuela Schwesig said. “The change in the law will help increase the number of victims who choose to press charges, lower the number of criminal prosecutions that are shelved and ensure sexual assaults are properly punished.”
The bill passed easily thanks to the government’s large parliamentary majority. Opposition parties welcomed the lowering of the threshold for prosecutions, but criticized two measures in the bill that could see people who aren’t directly involved in the assault punished and foreigners deported for sexual harassment.
According to figures cited by Heiko Maas, the country’s justice minister, only one in 10 rapes in Germany is reported and just 8 percent of rape trials result in convictions.
German MPs approve ‘no means no’ rape law
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