Removing a condom during sex without consent will be considered rape and attract a maximum penalty of life in prison under sweeping laws introduced to Queensland parliament on Wednesday.
The new laws, aimed at criminalising the tampering with or removal of a condom without consent – commonly referred to as stealthing – will be introduced into parliament as part of an affirmative consent model.
The affirmative consent model, which is expected to pass parliament, will require free and voluntary agreement to participate in a sexual activity.
Guardian Australia understands the bill will also seek to criminalise coercive control. Judges will also be allowed to inform juries of common misconceptions about sexual assault under the proposed laws.
Stealthing is illegal in Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the ACT.
The anti-stealthing laws were one of 188 recommendations last year by the state’s Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce.
Report two by the taskforce last year said Queensland should move “to an affirmative model of consent to better reflect community expectations of equality and mutual respect in consensual sexual relationships and to drive change in the way sexual offences are prosecuted and defended”.
“A person who practises ‘stealthing’ has changed the nature of the sexual act for which consent was given, is acting without consent, and should be prosecuted for the offence of rape,” it said.
The attorney general, Yvette D’Ath, said the new laws were designed to address rape myths, keep Queenslanders safe and hold perpetrators to account.
“The Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce heard from victim-survivors of sexual violence who said they were traumatised by the offence and then re-traumatised by the justice system,” D’Ath said in a statement.
“[The] taskforce found that sexual offence laws are often misunderstood, and rape myths and stereotypes, including narratives of ‘implied consent’, still feature heavily in trials.”
D’Ath said interfering or tampering with a condom without someone’s knowledge or consent “strikes at the heart of a person’s right to bodily autonomy and their right to choose whether and how to participate in a sexual activity”.
“It is rape and we are changing our laws to reflect this,” she said.
Di Macleod, the director of Gold Coast Centre Against Sexual Violence, said she was supportive of the move to consider stealthing as rape.
“I welcome the state government’s introduction of these laws to better reflect the reality of sexual violence and to increase victim-survivors’ access to justice,” she said.
• Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). International helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
