- The Law Reform Commission has proposed almost 70 changes to the city’s sexual offences laws, including ensuring offences cover LGBT communities and digital crimes
- The group released the recommendations after a 13-year study which included consultations with experts and rights groups
A commission tasked with reforming Hong Kong's laws on Thursday announced a host of wide-ranging recommendations, including changing the definition of sexual offences to cover people of all genders and sexual orientations, and bringing legislation in line with the digital age.
Among the almost 70 proposed changes, the Law Reform Commission suggested introducing a new offence of "sexual grooming" to protect minors from sexual predators online.
Sexual grooming, a charge not currently caught directly by any of Hong Kong's laws, refers to the act of predators often using electronic channels to gain a child's trust, with the ultimate intent to engage him or her in sexual acts.
A person is deemed to have committed the offence when he or she travels to meet or have made plans to meet the child he or she has sexually groomed, according to the group.
The aim of the recommendation was to deter underage sexual exploitation and for police to be given the power to carry out decoy operations, said the commission in the report, which was published after a study period of more than 13 years.
Criminal defence lawyer Andrew Powner, a member of the committee, said: "It's a matter of the law catching up with technology."
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The commission also recommended that the charge of "rape" be replaced with "sexual penetration without consent" to cover both vaginal and anal intercourse, as well oral sex " a charge that had previously come under scrutiny for being treated as a lesser offence of indecent assault.
The "sexual penetration without consent" offence would include penetrations by surgically constructed genitalia, the report said.
The charge of "indecent assault" should be amended to "sexual assault", the group recommended. A new offence of sexual exposure should be added to catch the offence of sexual assault without touching, it advised.
The commission recommended that a new offence should be introduced to criminalise sexual activity with a dead person, while the present incest offence should be extended to cover blood uncles and aunts, as well as adoptive parents.
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A string of new offences regarding sexual activities with people who have mental impairments were also proposed, including a ban on procuring them to engage in sexual acts or to watch sexual acts by inducement, threat or deception. There were also recommendations for offences targeting their caretakers in particular.
Senior counsel Peter Duncan, who chaired the sexual offences subcommittee, said the group sought the advice of legal and medical bodies, as well as human rights, women affairs, and children's welfare organisations to establish the recommendations.
"We believe that the report fairly reflects their suggestions and concerns," Duncan said, adding that the commission would now devise the sentences for the newly recommended offences.
Legal scholar Eric Cheung Tat-ming, another committee member, said Hong Kong's High Court had earlier this year already abolished or reformed sexual offences targeting gay men in a landmark judicial review.
In May, the High Court struck down four criminal offences it declared unconstitutional and revised the interpretation for three others in a judicial challenge filed by LGBT activist Yeung Chu-wing.
Cheung, a principal law lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, said the commission proposed to do it through the legislature, including abolishing buggery-related offences.
Earlier this year, the city scrambled to deter the crime of taking up-skirt photographs, with the city's top court in April handing down a restrictive ruling to stem prosecutors from using a charge meant for digital crime to prosecute those taking indecent photos.
The development prompted the commission to recommend the new offences of voyeurism and non-consensual upskirt photography. The two offences were carried in the report on Thursday.
Cheung said because of the extensive consultation the commission had done, the recommendations had won a majority consensus from society. He hoped the government authorities and legislature would turn them into law.
A spokesman from the Security Bureau on Thursday welcomed the report, saying it would study the recommendations carefully.
He added the bureau would follow up on the proposed offences of voyeurism and non-consensual up-skirt photography, and planned to consult the public and Legislative Council the following week.
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