AUSTRALIA has been put on the international legal map over a court case involving the bizarre question of whether jeans can be a barrier to rape.
Nicholas Gonzales, 23, was recently acquitted of rape after a jury raised questions about how his alleged victim's jeans came to be removed.
The woman testified that she had met Gonzales in a Sydney bar and accompanied him to his flat to listen to some music - but said he overpowered and raped her there.
Gonzales argued the sex was consensual and that the woman, who weighs a mere 42kg, was wearing tight jeans that would be difficult to remove without her collaboration.
After Gonzales was found not guilty he applied for his costs to be paid by the state. In dismissing his application, the judge this week said she found the medical evidence of sexual assault "compelling" and pointed out that Dr Rosemary Isaacs had examined the complainant and found evidence of physical trauma.
Do we therefore surmise that the jury found the "jeans defence" more relevant than medical evidence of trauma to the woman's genital area?
The verdict has outraged women's groups. As Veronica Wensing, chair of the National Association of Services Against Sexual Violence says, rape has nothing to do with what a woman is wearing.
Her view strikes me as blindingly obvious. Are we to assume that women invite rape if they wear a dress - thus making things easier for would-be rapists?
What's more, does anyone really imagine that every time a woman tries on a pair of jeans in a shop that she has to ask for an assistant to "collaborate" with her to take them off?
While the "jeans defence" sounds farcical, it is not without precedent.
We can trace its origin to a rape trial in Italy in 1992 when an 18-year-old student alleged her 45-year-old driving instructor drove her to an isolated spot, threw her to the ground, pulled her jeans from one leg and then savagely raped her. The man was eventually convicted and sentenced to more than two years in jail.
But in 1999, the Supreme Court of Italy overturned his conviction on the grounds that "it is nearly impossible to slip off tight jeans even partly without the active collaboration of the person who is wearing them".
The consequences of this are sickening. Two years ago, an Italian man tried using the jeans defence after being charged with sexually assaulting his 16-year-old stepdaughter.
While he was unsuccessful, it is clear that rapists had got the message they could treat as fair game any girl or woman wearing jeans. Fortunately, Italian law has finally caught on to the fact that jeans are not a form of chastity belt.
What astonishes me is that while female politicians have joined "Jeans Are Not An Alibi" protests across Europe and the United States, Australia's women politicians aren't up in arms about the jeans defence being successfully used here.
Where are the likes of Julia Gillard, Penny Wong, Julie Bishop and Christine Milne? Why aren't they doing what female legislators and political leaders in other countries have done and paraded themselves in their jeans on the steps of Parliament?
How about it, girls - a Jeans For Justice Day?
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Jettison the tight jeans legal furphy | Herald Sun
via heraldsun.com.au
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