If a grown man approaches an eight-year-old girl in a store and forcefully licks her feet, does that constitute sexual harassment?
The question should be obvious. The issue is that law enforcement in this day and age is even debating what constitutes sexual harassment.
As open and advanced as Taiwan is, it often feels that some parts of it remain in a time warp.
Two topics have been the subject of judicial debate lately — the toe-licker and online gambling.
Online gambling is indeed murky, as Taiwan’s laws only prohibit gambling in public places, and it is worth debating whether people should be punished for gambling from their homes on a Web site that is not hosted in Taiwan.
However, the debate over sexual harassment is ludicrous — judges should make the call instead of reverting to their wishy-washy “dinosaur” habits of protecting the perpetrators.
The accused in the toe-licking case committed a similar crime in 2016 and was charged with sexual harassment — but was given a 40-day sentence commutable to a NT$40,000 fine. This kind of slap on the wrist will not stop anybody, but that is for a different debate.
In any case, he allegedly did it again on Sunday, and while he was arrested on sexual harassment charges, not only was he released without bail, the prosecutors said there was “room for debate” whether his behavior constituted sexual harassment.
This is a repeat offender and the victim is a minor, and yet again law enforcement tries to make excuses for the suspect.
It is really hard to understand why the judicial system is so lenient toward such vile behavior.
The girl went through quite an ordeal, spending four hours being questioned by police, having to repeatedly recount the experience — while the suspect kept spouting complete nonsense, such as that he saw something dirty on her foot and wanted to clean it off.
According to the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act (性騷擾防治法), the offending action should exhibit “sexual behavior violating another person’s wishes.”
According to a report by the Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times), the prosecutors are not sure licking someone’s toes constitutes sexual behavior.
What world does these prosecutors live in that they have never heard of a foot fetish, one of the most common sexual fetishes in the world, in which licking is one of the most common ways to express it?
In the 2016 incident, as well as Sunday’s, a young girl was targeted. That is pedophilia. That this even has to be explained shows the ridiculousness of it all.
The bright side is that the judge agreed that it was sexual harassment, saying that toe-licking is a sexual act for certain people and the suspect’s behavior constituted improper contact that clearly made the victim feel uncomfortable or disgusted.
How this case and other sexual harassment cases play out should be closely watched.
Victims in Taiwan are already often reluctant to report such cases due to a number of societal factors, and would be even less likely to press charges if the suspect gets away again with just a fine or is not even charged with sexual harassment.
Laws should be consistent. If the suspect was charged in the 2016 case for the same act, it cannot be up for debate now.
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