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The Press
March 14 1996
Tax on men suggested to compensate sex victims
NZPA
Wellington - A general tax on men might be one
way to provide a compensation fund for victims of rape and sexual abuse, Rape
Crisis spokeswoman Toni Allwood said yesterday.
Her suggestion to MPs might prompt decent men in society to stand up and condemn
sexual attacks, she said.
Ms Allwood made the tongue-in-cheek remark during an exchange with Tarawera
MP Max Bradford during the labour select committee's hearing of submissions
on new ACC laws yesterday.
Rape Crisis has called for reintroduction of lump-sum compensation payments,
scrapped by a 1992 law change, as the best means of providing assistance to
victims of sexual attacks.
It believes such payments could help victims move house to a safe, new
location, invest in training to gain economic independence, or to invest in
education lost during the period of abuse.
Rape Crisis considered recent cases, in which a victim sought damages from an
attacker through the courts, as a backward step, Ms Allwood said. For victims
to rely on court action could be humiliating, it was costly, and meant they
had to hope their attacker was wealthy.
Ms Allwood suggested that if the system moved towards court compensation,
society was condoning a hideous form of prostitution in which a person could
abuse someone for years and the pay out through the courts.
While some people argued sexual attacks were a crime, not an accident, and
therefore should not be covered by ACC, Rape Crisis argued that the attack
was a deliberate act only for the attacker and was an accident for the
victim, she said.
Mr Bradford, who disagreed with Ms Allwood over her prostitution claim, asked
her where the logic was in requiring the community to pay through ACC for an
individual's crime.
Courts may be the appropriate means for seeking compensation, he said.
Ms Allwood said taking legal action did not help a victim whose attacker had
no money. She was aware of another seven cases in which women were to seek
compensation through courts after being abused.
A judge recently awarded $50,000 from a deceased man's estate to a woman who
claimed she had been sexually abused for years.
Ms Allwood said that if MPs wanted a specific fund for compensating victims,
a general tax could be imposed on all males.
In most cases, men were the perpetrators of rape and sexual abuse.
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