Men can also be victims of sexual violence, Supreme Court says

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The Supreme Court (SC) has ruled that men can also be victims of sexual violence, underscoring that the law must protect all victims of abuse regardless of gender.

In a 17-page decision, the SC En Banc affirmed that while women have historically suffered sexual violence by men, the law must be adaptable to also recognize that men can also be victims of perpetrators.

“... While there must be recognition of the historical injustice women have suffered, the law, as well as its interpretation, must be resilient enough to provide equal protection to all victims and guard against stereotypes that all women are victims and all men are perpetrators. When laws are not gender-neutral, male victims suffer twice: once at the hands of their abuser and second through the judicial system,” it said.

The SC also pointed out that the context of rape must not be viewed only through the lens of gender, but, “more importantly, of power.”

Power, the High Court said, is determined through a variety of factors including age, socioeconomic stature, and education.

“At its core, rape is an issue of power—an imposition of someone's dominance to violate the bodily autonomy of another. This power imbalance can manifest in many ways such as through differences in gender, age, socioeconomic stature, professional authority, or education,” the SC said.

“In rape, the perpetrator uses this power imbalance to coerce or manipulate the victim into submitting to their will or to make it impossible for the victim to refuse their advances,” it added.

According to court records, a woman was found guilty of committing acts of lasciviousness against her 11-year-old nephew, when she ordered him to take off his clothes, lie on the bed, and engaged in sexual intercourse with the boy.

Psychological debriefing and supportive psychotherapy diagnosed the child with post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from the sexual abuse.

Records said that while the child did not protest at first because “he felt curious about what would happen," after the incident, he felt ashamed and contemplated committing suicide.

The woman argued that the child consented to the sexual act, but the SC disagreed. The Court cited that, at the time of the incident, the age of sexual consent was 12 years old, and deemed that the child was legally incapable of giving consent.

“The age of sexual consent when the incident happened in 2018 was still 12 years old before it was raised to 16 years old with the passage of Republic Act No. 11648 in 2022. Thus, AAA280727, an 11-year-old child at the time of the incident, is deemed unable to give consent,” the SC said.

Passed in 2022, Republic Act No. 11648 raised the age of consent to 16 years old, and revised the wording that a rape may be committed "by a person who shall have carnal knowledge of another person."

In the decision, the SC noted that many countries have now adopted gender-neutral rape laws to protect everyone’s sexual autonomy from the harm of non-consensual penetrative sexual acts.

“[T]here must be recognition in our laws that sexual violence devastates equally regardless of how it was committed or, at the very least, a reevaluation of whether the historical justifications for the distinctions in our rape laws are still relevant—and, more importantly, fair,” the SC said.

The woman was found guilty of statutory acts of lasciviousness under Article 336 of the Revised Penal Code. She was sentenced to prison for nine to 16 years and ordered to pay P250,000 in civil indemnity and damages.

The decision was penned by Senior Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen and promulgated on February 4, 2026. —VAL, GMA News