THE Joint Select Committee considering the Offences Against the Person Act yesterday rejected suggestions that the offence of rape in the Bill be made gender-neutral.

“The committee seems to have reached one position and it will make life very easy if we leave rape as it is. Leave it as it is, man and woman and only in a certain way,” committee chair and justice minister Senator A J Nicholson said after discussions on the proposals.

The proposed reforms to the Offences Against the Person Act would have included providing a statutory definition of rape and sexual intercourse which would extend ‘rape’ beyond vaginal penetration by a penis. In addition, the offence of rape would have become gender-neutral, meaning it could be committed by a male or female against both male and female.

But yesterday Nicholson said while it was acknowledged that there were several entities who would prefer if the proposed gender-neutral concept for the Bill envelop rape, the route that was now being accepted by the committee was one that could be adopted without causing any major uproar.

“I know that there are some entities that wish for the gender-neutral concept to envelop rape, I understand, but we would be arriving at the same destination if we go the route that’s being apparently accepted by the committee now without any ripples in the society…we are not moving away from the gender-neutrality in total, it’s only in respect to rape,” Nicholson said.

However, he said “the penalty or penalties for the other offences are all going to be severe”.

Said the minister: “So it wouldn’t matter if you call them fish and chips or bread and butter; whatever name you give to it, the penalty is going to be severe.”

Law reform expert and advisor to the committee, Shirley Miller, later explained that “the suggestion is to keep rape in the limited sense that we understand it and then have other acts including various other matters which go beyond the traditional concept of rape”.

Government senator Donna Scott Mottley, also defended the committee’s rejection of suggestions that there be separate definitions for rape, sexual intercourse and sexual offences.

“When you have the definition of the ‘other acts’ what you are going to say is ‘without consent’. It therefore leaves it open to interpretation by the courts to say that men and men can consent to anal penetration, so that is why you have to take it out of the category of rape altogether. If you put that gender-neutral within the context of rape what you are saying is if it is done with consent it is not an offence,” she said.

In the meantime government MP Sharon Hay-Webster suggested that a Sexual Offences Act be drafted that would incorporate all the new provisions including incest and other similar offences.

Concurring, Senator Nicholson said the suggestion which also found favour with committee members was an important one.

Meanwhile, the Department of Correctional Services has retreated from its position that the age of consent should be raised from 16 to 18 years. Head of the department Major Richard Reese, in a submission to the committee last week, argued that the age of consent be raised to 18 years as “at the age of 16 a child is still economically dependent on his parents”. He said raising the age would help children to postpone their early sexual involvement and focus on preparation for adulthood. But the suggestion found no favour with Children’s Advocate Mary Clarke who maintained that legislation should seek to protect children and not “increase criminalisation of children”.

Following consultations between the Office of the Children’s Advocate, the Ministry of Health, and the Department of Correctional Services, the three agencies conceded that the age of consent should remain at 16 years.