Verbal sexual harassment
“Symbol legislation”: Union rejects criminal offense for “Catcalling”
Should “Catcalling” be punishable? This is what the SPD demands – and receives contradiction from the coalition partner. The Union rejects “regulations that cannot be enforced in practice “ away.
The Union rejects a new criminal offense for verbal sexual harassment, also called “Catcalling”, and thus gives a rejection of the SPD. “Symbol legislation And in practice, regulations that cannot be enforced do not help those affected, “said the legal policy spokeswoman for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group Susanne Hierl. star. “It is more important for social awareness that such verbal harassment is simply unacceptable and the social disapproval of such behaviors.”
Hierl emphasized that Catcalling was “disrespectful, hurtful and not tolerable”. However, the CSU politician restricted: “These actions cannot be legally pursued as long as there is no criminal insult. Nevertheless, new criminal offenses, the limits of which are practically hardly manageable and controllable, lead to uncertainty rather than more legal certainty. “
SPD wants to make “Catcalling” punishable
Previously, the SPD parliamentary group had asked to punish verbal sexual harassment. “This gap in law must be closed. We cannot tolerate such a behavior, “said the deputy parliamentary group leader Sonja Eichwede in an interview with the star said. That is why the SPD parliamentary group is working on creating a new criminal offense against the so-called “catcalling”. “We are talking about targeted, significant, oral sexual harassment,” said Eichwede.
In the legal sense, verbal sexual harassment does not constitute an insult or personal reduction, the social democrat said. The Federal Court of Justice found in a 2017 judgment that there was a legislative gap here. Verbal sexual harassment grumbled the victims, usually women or girls, massively. “The victims should not change their behavior, but the perpetrators,” said Eichweide. Studies showed that victims often changed their behavior and would partly withdraw from public life. “We have to counteract that,” demanded Eichwede.
Source: Stern
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