Dear Sir
I would like to add that I hope that you can help disseminate the following legal points of course with appropriate verification as some recent commentary on your blog posting have not fully grasped the law and the extent to which its drafting defers from that of the United Kingdom and its equivalent the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
Many commentators have noted the fact that the "onus" is on the man to check, Many do not know or fail to mention , that even after making all reasonable efforts to "check', the law in this case has a conclusive presumption WHICH does not allow for any defense except only in mitigation. If it is as true more senior lawyers emerge who should and would know the law better, the difficulty it places on men and not allowing them any defense is all the more apparent.
a. For many who will be convicted the clincher will be the very issue of not being able to offer a defense that we did not or could not have reasonably, rationally, on the predominance of evidence known that she was under 18. The only defense left thus is that we did not do it, or we paid for her company and not sex. No intent or means has to be proven just the act and no defense can be offered.
b. That presumption applies in the UK, but it kicks in at a fairer age and for a more serious offense, i.e sex with a minor and at 13
c. As far as I can remember within the Singapore Penal Code. There are two sorts of presumption. A presumption which shift the burden of proof, but it means that you can offer a defense i.e in Drug Trafficking. and a presumption which does not allow a defense. which as far as I know exists only within the " Fire Arms Act" for unlawful discharge of a firearm, commercial sex with a minor defined at 18 and sex with a minor under 16 which would be statutory rape. Is the offense that serious as to merit a removal of due process and equal treatment under the law and a right to a fair trial ?
d. Please note that sex with a minor is treated more seriously under a count of statutory rape with sentences including caning as an example. If any of us had deliberately had sex with an under 16 we would be facing an infinitely more serious charge and more serious consequences, something which none of the 48 would have wanted.
e. So thus comes the logical illogic, If a 17 year old can legally have sex, but she cannot legally sell herself for sex and if she is caught selling sex its her customers who face the music. Yet the customers are limited in their defense even if they can proof she lied to them, showed them a fake ID, showed the pimp a fake ID, none of it legally at the end of the day matters because the very act is sufficient for conviction]
f. I would like to add finally that prostitution crudely put on a retail level has many aspects. The mass market , street level prostitution encompasses a large degree of human trafficking, human slavery of the worst kind. As many have grasped a social escort which offers "luxury" pricing and with a database of alleged well of individuals cannot by any stretch of logic encompass the worst and most inhumane aspects of prostitution and human trafficking.
Sincerely Yours
1/48
4 comments:
What if you suspected she was 22, but pretending to be 18? If she insists she's 22, you're not going to press her to show her IC. Most likely you will just let her get away with trying to pass off as a younger woman. It is so common in this industry. Then 2 years later, it turns out that she was 17 yrs 8 months old at the time, just that too much underaged clubbing and drinking made her look old. So if you never even suspected, why would you even check?
And if you did suspect and did check, it is very possible the genuine IC photo of a 15-year-old in school uniform (in black and white) will not look even remotely like the dolled-up person standing before you. Yes, IC photos are only updated at age 30, and we all know how a Sec 3 nerd can become a Poly Year 1 babe.
The ladies will tell you how effective make-up skills can be. Or men who woke with horror after a clubbing ONS, haha.
So if she uses the same NRIC that allows her to regularly get into clubs that supposedly stop under-18s, she can fool you the way she fools club security. Unless you want to say club security are either incompetent or complicit.
What about underaged domestic help who lie about their age and use forged documents? It later turns out she is underaged and duped/forced into coming to Singapore to work in this wonderful job for a few hundred dollars a month. Should we harmonise our labour law with this anti-vice law? Even if the fake ID fooled you or the maid lied to you, it is still your fault? You go to jail? No one put a gun to your head and forced you to hire a maid, as the argument goes. I dare say a poor, uneducated village girl who was only 16 at the time deserves as much protection as a Singapore gal who went through our school system and deliberately lies so that she can sell herself to buy LV and Gucci necessities.
Using the same principle, where ignorance of her age is no defence, is it fair then to jail maid's employers if it later emerges that they were underaged? Maybe now things look a bit different, since this law will affect your typical Singapore family. It is easy to bay for blood when you assume the tragedy will not befall yourself or your loved ones.
The law in Singapore is precisely that naive, childish and irrational to the point of stupidity.
Motto in the law here, the onus is on you to check to protect yourself, impossible to argue your way out.
1. If you rent out a room or property to illegal immigrants, you are at fault for neglecting to check the real Resident, EP or FW permits.
2. If there is an accident, with the car in front reversing into yours, you are at fault, as it will be presumed your car hit the back of the car in front.
3. If someone shows signs of attacking you, and you take the first initiative to strike for self defence, you are at fault.
4. If you are caught red handed carrying drugs into Singapore, you face the death penalty, while the drug lord known to the CNB escapes scot free, as he is not caught with the precise act of drug trafficking. The poor insignificant little ant mule can't argue he did not check what he's told to carry.
5. If you buy deceptive financial or investment products that go junk, you are at fault for not conducting your own product investigations. Ditto for the 48 men, with their names caught over the net, having paid for the underaged teenager's sexual services.
Never mind whether the real act of having sex took place or not. There are some men who wan to gauge their state of sexual dysfunction with prostitutes, they just can't perform the act with their wives any more. Even with this girl, they may still can't perform, thus no actual act took place, obviously these men can't use this to defend themselves.
Never mind whether the girl looks older than 17 years or not, your onus is to check her IC/passports, the real MC coy documents, if you are negligent in this duty in the heat of excitement, you are at fault. Bo bian, can't get away at all. Even the presiding Judge is helpless, with the albatross round his and the citizens' necks.
To yuyuan:
The government goes for administrative convenience to its own advantage. It is not interested in whether the law is applied fairly; just that it is applied. I can quote the example of where someone makes a threatening call from your house phone. The govt case is that the owner is responsible if he cannot produce the culprit; regardless of the case where you happen to be hosting a 10000-person party at your house or you are not at home.
The govt has never been interested in whether the law is applied fairly or not. If someone were to make a threatening phone call from your house phone; you are presumed to be the culprit unless you can produce a "culprit".
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