🔶 Draft of law to toughen punishments for sexual crimes presented in Germany

Germany’s Ministry of Justice has published the first expert draft of a law to toughen punishments for sexual crimes.

Among the predictions of this bill is the setting of a penalty for verbal sexual harassment for the first time, as well as increasing punishments and extending the time limit for the prosecution of sexual assault crimes.

Under this proposal, the statute of limitations for pursuing these crimes in the future will be uniformly 20 years. Currently, these limitations vary between 5 and 20 years depending on the type of offense.

Stefanie Hubig, Germany’s minister of justice, said that it must be ensured that cases of sexual assault can be prosecuted and punished even years after the crime was committed.

The politician from Germany’s Social Democratic Party also intends to increase the level of punishment for gang assaults and other sexual assaults that are carried out collectively, as well as for assaults that result in the victim becoming pregnant.

In these cases, the minimum sentence in the future will be five years in prison, while until now it has been two years.