Sexual violence laws are failing adolescents
By Jacqui Hunt
International Women’s Day,
2022
LONDON, Mar 3 2022 (IPS)
– At Equality Now, we have
been on a years-long journey
to track and analyze sexual
violence laws and their implementation
around the world.
This work was born after working
with survivors of sexual
violence for over two decades
and observing that women and
girls reported similar barriers
to justice regardless of where
they were from.
While local, national, and
regional context impact a victim’s
experience, it is also clear
that many of the challenges
they face are universal.
From Eurasia to the Caribbean,
to South Asia and North
Africa, we discovered laws
which were supposedly meant
to protect women and girls but
in reality it perpetuated, and
in some cases, even promoted
gender-based violence and discrimination.
We found instances of so
called “marry your rapist” laws
which permit rapists to avoid
legal accountability by marrying
their victims, the decriminalization
of marital rape, and
laws that use terminology of
chastity and honor rather than
consent.
While there is a range of
ways in how laws in themselves
are failing victims of
sexual violence, one common
trend is that the implementation
of laws around the world
neglect to take into account
the unique needs and vulnerabilities
of marginalized communities.
Many countries do not apply
an intersectional lens when
implementing sexual violence
laws, resulting in the further
marginalization of already
underserved populations. For
example, in Guatemala, indigenous
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survivors face additional
barriers to justice due to
insufficient translation services
and the lack of geographically
accessible courts and law
enforcement.
In Georgia, the ability of
women living with disabilities,
particularly those with psychosocial
needs, to testify in their
own cases might be wrongly
discounted. In the United
States, a legacy of structural
racism has resulted in a distrust
of law enforcement by
communities of color, resulting
in low reporting rates
of sexual violence by Black
women.
And around the world, we
found that adolescent girls
were routinely under-protected
by sexual violence laws and
frequently negatively stereotyped
when seeking justice.
Adolescent girls are uniquely
vulnerable to experiencing
sexual violence, and yet too
often they are denied access
to justice and support services.
The emergence of girls’
sexuality during puberty is frequently
used as a justification
to disinvest in their schooling
and personal development
while simultaneously appropriating
their labor, sexuality,
and fertility.
No longer afforded the protections
of childhood, nor recognized
as adults, they find
themselves in a precarious
position, often victimized and
labelled sexually promiscuous
or a “temptress,” leaving them
isolated and unsupported rather
than protected from exploitation
and abuse.
Additionally, a dearth of
age-appropriate services and
education means that adolescents
are often not fully aware
of their rights and lack the
ability to self-advocate even
when legal recourse is available
to them.
Some discrimination is even
embedded in the law itself.
Estupro laws or provisions,
which are found throughout
Latin America and in substance
in other laws further
afield, allow for lesser penalties
for the rape of an adolescent
above the age of consent than
for an adult woman or child
below the age of consent.
Criminal justice officials
utilize estupro provisions to
portray adolescent girls as
manipulative seductresses who
tempt adult men into illicit
sex. These laws perpetuate the
misconception that victims
are often, at least partially,
responsible for their own abuse
and that rape is simply an act
of sexual deviance rather than
one of violence, control, and
entitlement.
By suggesting that sexual
violence is the fault of the victim,
estupro provisions contribute
to a wider culture of
victim blaming, in turn deterring
survivors from reporting
crimes and seeking help. This
means that cases either aren’t
prosecuted, thereby allowing
impunity for the perpetrator,
or that these lesser charges
are brought, thereby reducing
punishment for the perpetrator.
Stigma surrounds all forms
of sexual violence, but cases of
incest are especially taboo and
thus survivors of this form of
violence are even less likely to
receive justice. According to
UNICEF, 40-60 % of known
sexual assaults within the family
are committed against girls
aged 15 and younger, thus adolescent
girls are particularly
impacted by the silence around
this form of abuse.
In cases of incest, the perpetrator
is most often a male
family member and there is a
strong tendency to keep the
abuse private at all costs, at
the expense of the rights and
wellbeing of the victim– most
often a young or adolescent
girl. By keeping the matter
under wraps, the victims of
familial abuse will often suffer
long lasting and devastating
psychological, emotional and
physical consequences.
Equality Now’s study, conducted
with Pakistani partners,
of incest in Pakistan found
that child and adolescent victims
of incest faced numerous
barriers, including: stigma as a
barrier to reporting, attitudes
of law enforcement, prosecutorial
misconduct, untrained
medical professionals, drawnout
trials, and a lack of youthspecific
services.
In the rare cases where girls
and adolescents attempted to
report a case of incest, they
were met by a criminal justice
system that shamed and
stigmatized them. One fifteenyear
old girl who was raped by
her father was told by the police
that she was “doing something
wrong” by reporting her abuse
and that by speaking publicly
she would “stain her family’s
honor.”
Her experience was unfortunately
not unique. Another
young woman reported that
the police refused to take her
statement about being raped
by her brother-in-law because
they claimed that it was simply
an instance of “enmity
between two families.”
It is difficult for all survivors
of sexual violence to receive
justice and to stand up against
laws and systems that seek
to undermine their credibility,
but for adolescent girls the
challenge is even greater.
For them, and for their
future as women, we need
robust laws, survivor-informed
and gender-sensitive implementation,
and intentional
collaboration between all
actors to ensure that every survivor’s
needs are considered,
addressed, and supported.
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