CNN reports on a victory for child-molesting step-fathers in Italy:
Sexually abusing a teenager is less serious a crime if the girl is not a virgin, Italy’s higher court said on Friday in a controversial ruling that immediately drew a barrage of criticism.
The court ruled in favor of a man in his forties, identified only as Marco T., who forced his 14-year old stepdaughter to have oral sex with him after she refused intercourse.
The man, who has been sentenced to three years and four months in jail, lodged an appeal arguing that the fact that his stepdaughter had had sex with men before should have been taken into consideration during his trial as a mitigating factor.
The supreme court agreed, saying that because of her previous sexual experiences, the victim’s “personality, from a sexual point of view, is much more developed than what would be normally expected of a girl of her age”.
“It is therefore fair to argue that (the damage for the victim) would be lower” if the abused girl was not a virgin, Italian news agencies quoted the court as saying.
This means the man could now be handed a lighter sentence.
I am not sure exactly what to say in response to this. But I think Il Duce’s granddaughter got it about right.
“This is a shameful, devastating ruling,” said Alessandra Mussolini, grand-daughter of wartime fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. “The real problem is that there are no women in the supreme court.”
