The Sexual Offences Bill, 2024 that seeks to boost punishment of intercourse offenders and safety of victims throughout trial has been re-introduced in Parliament.
The Bill was offered for First Reading by Soroti City Woman Member of Parliament, Hon. Anna Adeke Ebaju on Monday, 14 October 2024 at a sitting of the House chaired by Speaker Anita Among.
The Bill is being re-introduced after it was handed by the tenth Parliament however was returned by President Yoweri Museveni in 2021 and couldn’t be processed following its lapse with the top of that parliament.
The Bill can even see the evaluate and replace the sexual offences contained within the Penal Code Act to be able to treatment the brand new types of sexual violence and exploitation that are at present prevalent.
Adeke in her justification stated the Bill is premised on the scattered nature of laws on sexual offences.
“Whereas sexual offences are primarily prescribed below the Penal Code Act, numerous legal guidelines such because the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act, , the Domestic Violence Act, and the Children Act, make provision for quite a lot of sexual offences,” she stated.
Adeke argued that there’s want to make sure the laws responds to the evolving and present developments in sexual offences, curbs sexual violence and adopts worldwide greatest practices within the prevention of sexual violence.
The Bill additionally states that, “the scattered nature of sexual offences in several items of laws denies the general public a single piece of laws on sexual offences to information the prevention, safety and prosecution of those offences. Quite a lot of Commonwealth nations akin to India, United Kingdom and Kenya have all consolidated sexual offences right into a single laws”.
The Bill introduces new offences and new penalties akin to switch of data of a sexual nature to an individual with out his/her consent. An individual guilt of such an offense faces 5 years of imprisonment identical to people who will probably be responsible of drawing photos, taking photos and movies of individuals in a state of nudity.
The Bill proposes a demise sentence for aggravated rape, criminalises indecent gestures akin to touching one’s sexual organs with a 3 12 months’s sentence and proposes that comparable punishment for an individual who exposes his sexual organs to anybody whereas in public.
If handed into regulation, an individual who administers a substance with intent to commit a sexual act will probably be liable to conviction on imprisonment for a interval not exceeding seven years.
Speaker Among noticed that the Bill has a certificates of monetary implications granted by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development with issues she thought-about unclear.
“The certificates states that the proposed measures within the invoice are already being carried out by authorities businesses and that continuing with the invoice will result in wastage of assets. It signifies that the proposals have monetary implications but the Attorney General didn’t point out the a part of the regulation that will probably be duplicated; they didn’t inform us how a lot cash is concerned,” Among stated.
Following the passing of the Bill In 2021, President Museveni returned it to Parliament noting the offences had been already supplied for within the Penal Code Act.
Museveni opined that the Uganda Law Reform Commission had carried out a broad evaluate of all legal associated legal guidelines just like the Penal Code Act, Magistrates Court Act, Trial on Indictment Act and the Evidence Act which made provisions of the Sexual Offences Bill, redundant.
He appealed to Parliament to permit the reviewing of all different legal legal guidelines and suggest complete amendments of the related legal guidelines versus piecemeal amendments.
