0
By Deutsche Presse Agentur
Hanoi - Vietnamese provincial authorities are refusing to prosecute three men who police say gang-raped a transexual woman, officials said Wednesday.
Judicial officials said the woman had not reclassified her legal gender from male to female, and that Vietnamese law only covers rape of women by men.
"The laws don't regulate how to deal with this case, so even if the group raped her 10 times, we would not be able to sentence them," said Nguyen Van Thin, chief judge of the Quang Binh Provincial People's Court.
Thin's statement appeared to contradict the Vietnamese Penal Code, Article 111 of which states that "those who use violence ... in order to have sexual intercourse with victims against the latter's will" are guilty of rape, without reference to gender.
The rape took place on April 4 in Quang Binh province, according to the newspaper Ho Chi Minh City Law. She reported the crime the next day and police arrested the three men, who reportedly confessed.
When police sent documentation on the case to the procuracy, the woman's identification documents showed her gender as male. She said she had a sex-change operation four years previously and had not taken legal steps to reclassify her gender.
Some prosecutors then claimed the law did not cover the case. The accused remain in detention while judicial officials debate how to proceed.
In a letter published Wednesday by the online newspaper VnExpress, lawyer Vu Tien Vinh stated that the law did not clearly address such cases, and that cases of women raping men could also not be prosecuted.
Another lawyer, Cu Huy Ha Vu, said that while authorities had never specifically addressed the issue of rape of a transexual, they should be able to prosecute the crime under current law.
Articles 111 ("Rape") and 113 ("Forcible sexual intercourse") of Vietnam's Penal Code make no reference to the genders of the offender or the victim.
Source:
