UN agency criticizes Brazilian court’s rape ruling

SAO PAULO (AP) — The United Nations refugee agency said Thurs­day it was deplorable that Brazil’s top appeals court ruled that sex with a 12-year-old does not nec­es­sar­ily con­sti­tute statu­tory rape.

Amerigo Incal­caterra, head of the UNCHR’s regional office for South Amer­ica, said in a state­ment that last week’s deci­sion by Brazil’s Supe­rior Court of Jus­tice cre­ates a dan­ger­ous prece­dent and dis­crim­i­nates against victims.

“The sex­ual life of a child can­not be used to revoke its rights,” he said.

The court ruled that a man accused of hav­ing sex with three 12-year-olds couldn’t be con­victed of rape because of exten­u­at­ing cir­cum­stances, includ­ing the fact that the girls had pre­vi­ously worked as prostitutes.

Incal­caterra said gov­ern­ments must pro­tect minors from all forms of vio­lence, includ­ing sex­ual abuse.

“Inter­na­tional human rights guide­lines make it clear that a woman’s sex life can­not be taken into con­sid­er­a­tion in tri­als regard­ing her rights and legal pro­tec­tion,” the state­ment said.

One week ago, Amnesty Inter­na­tional called the appeals court’s deci­sion “out­ra­geous” and said it was an “affront to the most basic human rights.”

“This shock­ing rul­ing effec­tively gives a green light to rapists and if it pre­vails could dis­suade other sur­vivors of sex­ual abuse from report­ing these crimes,” the head of the group’s Brazil branch, Atila Roque, said in a statement.

Calls to the appeals court for com­ment went unanswered.

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