Romanian MPs to Debate Chemical Castration Legislation

The Romanian parliament is set to debate a bill on 'chemical castration' for sex offenders again, after a police officer was prosecuted for several assaults on minors. 

Romania's parliament is to again debate 'chemical castration' as an optional sentence for sex offenders after a police officer was caught on camera assaulting two children in January.

According to the bill submitted by Social Democrat MP Catalin Radulescu, people convicted of assaulting minors could opt to take drugs designed to reduce a male offender's testosterone and sexual libido in exchange for a reduced sentence.

The parliament rejected a previous bill on so-called chemical castration in 2015, also submitted by Radulescu.

The bill passed the Senate without being debated, but it was rejected by a large majority in the lower chamber.

Radulescu said on Monday that his bill was intended to prevent sex crimes against children, and that the drugs would only be given with the consent of the offender.

"Three years ago, we filed a bill on chemical castration of paedophiles, a measure that almost all European countries and the United States use, even in Moldova, and which, through the treatment applied to paedophiles, would have eliminated the psychopath tendencies of these paedophiles and would have protected our children," Radulescu wrote on Facebook.

"But unfortunately, my initiative received a negative opinion from the Justice Minister at that time," he added.

In January, Romania's police and government were shaken by a paedophilia scandal.

A police officer from the traffic brigade was caught on camera while sexually assaulting two children in an elevator in Bucharest and investigators revealed that some of his colleagues had allegedly covered...