LatAm Sexual Violence Laws Stigmatize Victims of Abuse Barbara Jimenez-Santiago - Equality Now
go to original January 9, 2022

Across Latin America and the Caribbean there is a culture of impunity for perpetrators of sexual violence. Crimes against women and girls often go unpunished and under-reported due to societal misconceptions about victimhood and the nature of sex crimes.

The stigmatization of survivors and the permissive attitude toward abusers is reinforced by discriminatory laws that perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes.

Equality Now recently undertook an analysis of rape laws across the Americas region and what we found were woefully insufficient laws that failed to adequately prevent sexual violence and ensure justice for women and girls who have been violated. One of the most common yet insidious forms of legal loopholes that we found in Latin America specifically were so-called “estupro provisions.”

Estupro provisions, which provide for a lesser penalty for adults who rape adolescents above the legal age of consent than for children or adult women, are based on the idea that adolescents seduce and tempt older men into assaulting them or that older men seduce impressionable and naive teenagers into sexual acts.

This interpretation suggests a notion of a hierarchy of rape where some perpetrators are deemed less guilty than others for effectively the same crime and some victims are implied to be less harmed by the experience and so less deserving of justice.

These laws are rooted in outdated perceptions about chastity, morality, and female sexuality and enable prosecutors to argue that adolescent victims manipulated their aggressor into abusing them. Estupro laws and provisions perpetuate the idea that a victim is, at least partially, responsible for the crimes committed against her.

Estupro is often wrongly defined on the internet as “statutory rape,” but these two charges are not the same. Statutory rape, used commonly in penal codes of the United States of America, refers to what would otherwise be considered consensual sex, except that it involves a minor whose young age means that the law deems her or him incapable of being able to consent.

The penalty for statutory rape is often higher than for other categories of rape, whereas for estupro there is a lesser penalty.

Read our report on rape laws in the Americas, Failure to Protect: How Discriminatory Sexual Violence Laws and Practices are Hurting, Women, Girls and Adolescents in the Americas

Discriminatory laws, like estupro provisions, not only deny victims justice but they legitimize the practice of victim-blaming by suggesting that an adult perpetrator could be seduced or tricked into have sex with a minor. Latin American governments must act now to repeal any existing estupro provisions.

This reform must be complemented by a complete overhaul of sexual violence laws, including adopting consent-based definitions of rape, to ensure that adolescent girls and all survivors are protected from sexual violence in all circumstances.

Reforming sexual violence laws will both allow survivors of sexual violence access to dignified justice but will play a critical role in shaping the way that society understands sexual and gender-based violence.

Read the rest at IPSNews

Related: Mexico: In the Midst of a Femicide Crisis, the 2022 Budget Must Prioritize Public Policies to Deal With Gender-Based Violence (Equality Now)

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