Global Problems in Sexual Offenses

Abstract

Attrition rate in sexual crimes still remains today as a major problem in Turkey. Attrition, from the perspective of criminal law, is not only cause by criminal procedural system- related issues like a lack of victim support or insufficient evidence. In fact, it is primarily linked with how to define sexual crimes. Therefore, lively debates in many jurisdictions on regulating sexual crimes and particularly on the consent issues appears recently. The Turkish criminal law is here no exception. The legislation of sexual crimes in Turkey has undergone several major reforms in the past two decades. Indeed, in 2005, a paradigm shift regarding legal interest for sexual crimes from public morality to sexual integrity was introduced. This study aims to focus on problems appearing in regulating sexual crimes after the Turkish Penal Code of 2005 and the 2014 amendments, as such, it explores the substantive criminal law issues of the sexual crimes in Turkey surrounded the consent issues. This study, however, confines itself with the crime of sexual assault (Art. 102) which punishes the violation of bodily integrity of adults through sex acts and as such it stands as a fundamental (general) sexual crime type in the Turkish law. In an effort to analyze the consent in sexual crimes, this chapter displays the transition on legal interest for sexual crimes from public morality to sexual integrity as the owner of sexual autonomy for the consent (II). After considering the legal interest as a foundation, it provides an overview on regulation of sexual crimes in the penal code for those who are non-familiar to the Turkish system (III). Then it moves to the core issue, the role and legal qualification of the consent in the application of sexual assault (Art.102). Because the Penal Code contains no words such as ‘the consent’ or a similar one and instead it states, ‘violating someone’s bodily integrity through sex acts’ in Art. 102 which has also aggravating and mitigating forms, this study discusses the consent issue in the context of the verb ‘violate’. The evaluation of the consent in the case-law will be analyzed (IV). It considers non-consensual sexual acts against a spouse as a sexual assault in Turkey (V). Finally, it provides conclusive remarks (VI).