Rejected petition Make UK rape laws gender-neutral under one section.

We want the law to treat all rape equally, no matter who commits it. Right now, women can't be charged with rape, only assault. This isn't fair. We want a gender-neutral law that gives all victims equal justice and matches international human rights standards.

More details

The current law only allows men to be charged with rape, ignoring that women can also commit this crime. Instead, women are charged with assault by penetration, a term that sounds less serious and is grouped under general sexual assault. This downplays the offence and its impact. Rape should be defined by the act, not the gender. To promote true equality and justice, women must be held to same legal standard, with offences treated equally in name, charge and consequence.

This petition was rejected

Why was this petition rejected?

There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.

You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.

You may wish to sign this petition which calls for the same action: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/706166

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.

Date submitted 1 May 2025
Get petition data (json format)

About petition data

The data shows the number of people who have signed the petition by country as well as in the constituency of each Member of Parliament. This data is available for all petitions on the site. It is not a list of people who have signed the petition. The only name that is shared on the site is that of the petition creator.