European parliament urges EU to draw up standardised consent-based definition of rape

The European parliament has called on the EU to draw up a standardised consent-based definition of rape, in what legislators described as a crucial step towards addressing the patchwork of laws, some of them insufficient, that now exist across the bloc. On Tuesday, 447 of the parliament’s 720 MEPs voted to approve a report calling for a common definition of rape, centred on “only yes means yes”, prompting a loud round of applause in the chamber in Strasbourg. “Silence, lack of resistance, the absence of a ‘no’, previous consent, past sexual conduct or any current or previous relationship must not be interpreted as consent,” the parliament said in a statement following the vote. A common definition would force member states that continue to include force or violence in their laws to align with international standards, said Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus, a Polish MEP who was one of the main drivers of the initiative. “We can’t have the meaning of rape change as we cross from one border to another,” she said. “We can’t have a situation where a rapist who has raped a woman in Germany can go to Hungary and isn’t prosecuted because the law is different. And that’s what this report is about.” In recent years, the majority of EU member states have adopted consent-based definitions of rape in their criminal codes. …