성폭력범죄 대처를 위한 최근(2012. 12. 18.)의 개정 형법에 대한 검토

Amid the society which has been getting developed in more diverse and complex pattern, sexual assault has also been changed in various ways accordingly but regretfully current criminal law can hardly respond to such patterns. When it comes to analogous intercourse, it’s considered a rape which is subject to severe punishment in advanced nations in including Germany and France where the laws define the rape as “penetration into the body” and then in Korea, on the contrary, ‘genital penetration only is considered the rape’ and analogous intercourse is regarded the indecent assault and moreover, the object of the rape offense is limited to women. And for reasons of respecting the privacy and personality, the sexual assault including sexual molestation, kidnapping, luring, bribing and concealing for the purpose of adultery and rape are defined as the crime subject to victim’s complaint. But in a bid to induce the withdrawal of complaint by the victim, perpetrators rather often threaten the victims or sue against the victim for defamation. Despite of the criminal laws which clearly define the sexual assault as a grave crime, it still remains as the crime subject to victim’s complaint, which is against the intent of the criminal law system. In case of sexual intercourse under pretence of marriage, very few cases in fact undergo punishment. The law limiting the object of illicit sexual intercourse under pretence of marriage to “the women who do not have habitual obscene act” has damaged the sexual identity of the women, which thus shall be abolished. To effectively deal with the sexual assaults developed in diverse patterns and manners, the law to deal with analogous intercourse shall be established and the objects of sex crime shall be expanded form ‘women’ to ‘person’ and the system allowing the crime subject to victim’s complaint and illicit sexual intercourse under pretence of marriage shall be abolished and the revised law incorporating such circumstance, dubbed the 11th revised criminal law, has been currently endorsed recently by the national assembly and will become effective as of June 19, 2013.