At a time when Romania is facing a serious problem in the field of trafficking in human beings, a situation highlighted in numerous international and US State Department reports, the USR party is delaying the adoption of a law that would significantly contribute to combating this scourge.
At the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday 13 June, USR MEP Claudiu Năsui requested that the legislative proposal automatically classifying sexual acts between adults and minors under the age of 16 as rape be referred back to committee for a second time.
The legislative proposal received last week a favourable report from the Legal Committee of the Chamber of Deputies and was due to be voted on in plenary this week, after previously passing the Senate vote. The USR, arguing that the legislative proposal could be improved, asked for and obtained a referral back to committee for another two weeks, thus delaying the entry into force of legal provisions that would help combat the phenomenon of sexual exploitation of minors.
What changes would the law bring
Four PNL senators, including Iulia Scântei and Alina Gorghiu, and a PSD senator have submitted a bill to the Senate aimed at raising the age of sexual consent to 15 years and to separately criminalise the crime of rape committed against a minor, as well as that of sexual assault committed against a minor and the crime of causing or facilitating the commission of sexual acts or acts of a sexual nature between minors, with aggravating circumstances and proportionate penalties.
The authors of the legislative initiative have also included a new criterion of vulnerability of the minor victim - the precariousness of his or her economic or social situation, given the numerous cases of abuse and sexual exploitation of disadvantaged children from very poor families, who beg or prostitute under the threat of the perpetrators, who have no permanent home or residence or who are in various centres or shelters.
Civil society was heavily involved and most of the amendments proposed by civil society were adopted.
After the last amendments approved in the Legal Affairs Committee, the legislative proposal was supposed to go to the final vote with the age of consent raised to 16. Thus, any sexual act between an adult and a minor under the age of 16 would be punishable by imprisonment of between 7 and 12 years, eliminating the possibility of invoking the minor's consent. Sexual acts committed under duress would also be punishable by imprisonment from 8 to 15 years, to which the legislative proposal adds other aggravating circumstances, according to the attached document. Pimping and trafficking in human beings would also be covered, with tougher penalties.
List of amendments introduced by the legislative initiative, HERE! (.pdf)
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