Hong Kong women’s rights advocates and sexual assault survivors have urged authorities to close a loophole that allows defendants to claim an honest but mistaken belief in consent before a sexual act, warning that it could undermine proposed reforms.
The Association Concerning Sexual Violence Against Women and survivor group We Are X on Wednesday said the government’s updated stricter definitions of consent should also be extended to this long-standing defence.
“If we agree that the defendant has to take steps to ascertain consent, there should be guidelines in the law on what these steps mean. Otherwise, the [proposed safeguard] would be a dead letter,” Chelsea Ma Pik-kwan, vice-chairwoman of the association, said.
The Security Bureau this week launched a month-long public consultation on sweeping reforms to Hong Kong’s sexual offences laws, many of which centre on the concept of consent.
Proposals include a statutory definition, provisions on how consent may be given or withdrawn, and a non-exhaustive list of 11 circumstances that would not constitute consent.
These include situations where the victim does not communicate consent, either verbally or through conduct, or is mistaken about the nature or purpose of the act.
