Attorney General Douglas Moylan testifies in support of Bill 33-38 on Tuesday at the Guam Congress Building in Hagåtña.
HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Guam has the second-highest number of rapes per capita, according to statistics made available to the University of Guam’s Violence Against Women Prevention Program.
The data indicates there are some 64 reported rapes per 100,000 people on Guam, compared to the national average of 25 per 100,000 people.
The grim statistics were quoted by Sen. Shawn Gumataotao during a public hearing on Bill 33-38 by Vice Speaker Tony Ada.
“It expands a list of perpetrators who take advantage of their positions of authority and sexually assault teens who are 14 and 15 years of age,” Ada said.
The expanded list would include school personnel such as teachers and school aides, child care or foster care providers, correctional facility workers, and those who are in a dating relationship with a member of the victim’s household.
“Guam’s children need the protection of our laws to ensure that their homes are safe and that would-be sex offenders do not abuse their position of authority to victimize their children,” Ada said.
The bill also expands the definition of “affinity” only for criminal sexual conduct to include a person in a dating relationship with one of the victim’s parents.
Attorney General Douglas Moylan said he agrees with the addition of the language. “The AG’s office also agrees that criminal sexual conduct between individuals related via affinity, through what other jurisdictions were defined as common law, should be criminalized.”
“That seems to be very common on Guam, with people not marrying as much as they used to,” Moylan added.
Assistant Attorney General Christine Tenorio, who handles many if not most of the criminal sexual conduct cases brought by the Office of the Attorney General, said adding the “dating relationship” to the list of perpetrators will help her to prosecute cases.
“It would help me address common law. As you know, common law is not adopted on Guam. So I cannot proceed under that definition,” Tenorio said.
“This piece of legislation would allow me to prosecute under first-degree criminal sexual conduct where it’s 15 to life because it is these types of relationships: within households, within the foster care facilities and all the other relationships delineated here,” Tenorio said.
Tenorio said she is also the appellate attorney for criminal sexual conduct cases.
“So by delineating explicitly relationships without me having to perform legal gymnastics to get there, this would be help me greatly,” Tenorio added.
