[Blog/Commentary] [Singapore] Rape of Vietnamese Trans Lady Throws Spotlight on Legal Dilemma of Southeast Asia’s Trans Women
Stephanie Stevens
Rape of Vietnamese Trans Lady Throws Spotlight on Legal Dilemma of
Southeast Asia’s Trans Women
The rape of a trans woman in Vietnam whose new status is not reflected
on her official documents, and the refusal of the provincial
authorities to prosecute the aggressors has cast the spotlight on the
legal dilemma of Southeast Asia’s trans women, especially
pre-operative trans women and post-operative trans women whose
countries do not recognise their new status. The news reports are
unclear as to whether Vietnam grants legal recognition to
post-operative trans women – I think it does. They also do not
clarify why the trans woman in question did not change her official
documents (she may be ignorant of such matters). In any case, rape is
rape, and the reasons provided by the provincial authorities are
everything south of barbaric. Unfortunately, one suspects that this
is the fate of most trans women in Southeast Asia who are victims of
rape. How can the APTN help, I wonder. I’ve brought up the matter to
our network and hopefully we tap into some legal expertise to ensure
that such crimes against humanity are not perpetuated again (not the
rape which unfortunately we can’t prevent, but the lack of legal
recourse).
Here’s the news from Thanh News.com:
Rape of transsexual woman stirs legal debate
Last updated: 8/27/2010 7:25
The rape of a transgender woman in the north-central province of Quang
Binh has sparked a serious debate among legal professionals after
judicial authorities declined to prosecute the three perpetrators.
The German Press Agency dpa quoted officials in the province as saying
the victim had not reclassified her legal gender from male to female
on Wednesday, August 25. Because Vietnamese law only applies to the
rape of women by men, the case could not be prosecuted, they said.
“The laws don’t regulate how to deal with this case, so even if the
group raped her ten times, we would not be able to sentence them,”
Nguyen Van Thin, chief judge of the provincial People’s Court, told
dpa.
According to Ho Chi Minh City Law newspaper, the unidentified woman
was gang-raped by the three men on April 4. She reported the crime to
local police the following day. After the men were arrested, they
confessed to the crime in custody.
The province ran into problems when the authorities found that all of
the victim’s identification documents indicated her gender as male.
She said she had undergone a sex change operation overseas four years
ago and now, as a woman, she insisted the rapists be punished, the
newspaper said.
Some experts said, legally speaking, the victim is still a man and the
case is thus not covered under the law. They said that Vietnamese law
does not recognize the grievances of transgender rape victims.
Other legal professionals did not agree. They said the law only
stipulates that “those who use force, threaten to use force, or abuse
the defenselessness of their victims, or use other tricks in order to
have sexual intercourse with the victims against their will” are
guilty of rape.
Because the regulation makes no reference to the genders of either the
offender or the victim, anyone who commits the crime can be prosecuted
under current law.
Judge Pham Cong Hung, from the HCMC People’s Supreme Court, said that
what the three men did to the victim was enough to hold them guilty of
rape and there should be no question about it.
Hung also believed that the victim should be treated as a woman.
September 2, 2010 - Posted by leonalo