Women can rape men, says female judge
March 06, 2007
A Jamaican female judge who is now prosecuting the Rwandan genocide trial in which rape has been one of its worst features, says women can rape men and
other women.
At the same time, Alayne Frankson-Wallace, a prosecutor for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (UNICTR), now underway in Arusha, Tanzania, has cautioned the Jamaican parliament against being "restrictive in its deliberations on rape and sexual intercourse".
"It is too naïve to suggest that a woman cannot be the perpetrator of acts of sexual violence against a man. Further, that women have not, and do not take sexual advantage of men in situations where the question of consent has been nullified by the operative circumstances," she said.
"Similarly, an act of rape, in the sense of non-consensual sexual intercourse, can be committed by woman against woman and man against man," she argued.
Frankson-Wallace made her comments in response to the ongoing debate led by the Joint Select Committee of Parliament considering amendments to the Incest (Punishment) Act and An Act to Amend the Offences Against the Person Act.
The judge said the debate provided an opportunity for the Parliament to take a fresh look at how Jamaican law treated with crimes of a sexual nature and suggested that "a more expansive and proactive approach (be taken) to criminalising any conduct that could be classified as sexual violence".
"Through careful drafting, this could be done without unwittingly legalising or decriminalising the offence of buggery, a situation certain Members of Parliament and civil society seem anxious to guard against," said Frankson-Wallace, younger sister of Jamaica Manufacturers Associaton (JMA) president, Doreen Frankson.
In an article made available to the Observer, the judge noted that, among other things, the Select Committee had deliberated on the definition to be accorded to the offence of rape, indicating it would wish to leave it as currently defined as the penetration of the vagina of a woman by the penis of a man without her consent.
She has apparently been able to draw on her experience as one of those prosecuting persons accused of genocide and serious breaches of international humanitarian law for acts committed in the territory of Rwanda in 1994, and in which rape was massively used as a weapon against civilians.
Three of the key political leaders in Rwanda at the time and who are believed to be among the masterminds of the genocide, are on trial. They are accused of using the political machinery of Rwanda, in concert with the military leaders and business people, to plan and implement the massacre of the Tutsi ethnic group. They are charged with genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to genocide, rape and extermination as crimes against humanity....
Author: Desmond Allen
Source: Jamaica Observer
