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Anissa Daoudi - 7th July 2019
The 19th of June is celebrated as the UN International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. In this context, Security Council Resolution 1820, in 2008, recognized sexual violence as a tactic of war and a threat to global peace and security. It recognized that rape and other forms of sexual violence can […]
Angela Hefti - 19th June 2019
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ (IACtHR) feminist answer to torture and sexual enslavement in its September 2018 López Soto v Venezuela judgment is unprecedented. López Soto is the first femicide case before the Court, in which the victim could testify to the circumstances of her captivity and abuse. In 2001, Linda López Soto was abducted […]
Fleur van Leeuwen - 13th May 2019
In October 2018 the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Committee (HRC) adopted general comment (GC) 36 on the right to life, replacing GC 6 and GC 14. Latter documents date back to the 1980s and attest to the androcentric nature of the international human rights system. Neither document pays attention to issues that characteristically affect the […]
Lucy Geddes - 25th January 2019
Between the years of 1960 and 1974, Spanish lawyer and feminist activist Lidia Falcón O’Neill was detained seven times by security police on behalf of the Franco government, because of her protests against the regime. On five of these occasions, she alleges that she was brutally tortured, including being hung from a hook in the […]
Kali Srikari Kancherla and Shreyasi Tripathi - 25th October 2018
In the landmark decision in Joseph Shine v Union of India on 27 September 2018, the Indian Supreme Court unanimously struck down a 150-year old penal provision criminalising adultery as unconstitutional. Section 497 of Indian Penal Code 1860 criminalises a man having consensual sexual intercourse with a married woman without the consent of her husband. The Court […]
Karan Tripathi - 23rd May 2018
Despite India’s liberal and secular commitments, honour killing has remained a social reality. A report by the National Crime Records Bureau records at least 288 cases of such violence in the period 2014-2016. Against this background, the Supreme Court of India, on 28th March 2018, passed a landmark judgment in Shakti Vahini v. Union of […]
- 23rd April 2018
In a recent case before the Indian Supreme Court, Ms X v Mahmood Farooqi, the court refused to overturn a Delhi High Court decision which set a dangerous precedent that a ‘feeble no’ did not signify a lack of consent in rape cases. In the present case, Ms X accused Mahmood Farooqi of committing rape […]
Madhulika T - 6th April 2018
Following Puttaswamy v Union of India – in which the judges unanimously and unequivocally ruled that a right to privacy exists – the marital rape exception found in the Indian Penal Code which states that non-consensual sex between a man and his wife is not rape, is of questionable legal standing. In India “a right to privacy” […]
Tarika Jain - 20th March 2018
According to a study conducted on members of the Bohra community in India, a startling 75% of the daughters of the 94 participants were subjected to Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) around the age of seven to nine years, in accordance with their religious customs. A majority of the reported cases were of Type 1 FGM/C […]
Surya Rajkumar - 25th February 2018
In an order dated 6/11/2017, the High Court of Gujarat described marital rape as “a disgraceful offence that has scarred the trust and confidence in the institution of marriage”, proposing to consider, through its own motion, whether a husband forcing his wife to perform oral sex constitutes an offence under the provisions of the Indian […]
Brenda Kelly - 6th February 2018
On February 6, UN International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), the international community will condemn FGM. Who would disagree that FGM (the partial or total removal of female external genitalia or injury to female genital organs for cultural reasons) is not a great harm, violence against women and violation of human […]
Tania Sordo Ruz - 8th January 2018
In the coming months, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights will issue its decision on the Atenco case, regarding acts of sexual torture committed against women by Mexican state agents. On November 16 and 17, 2017, a public hearing was held in the case of Mariana Selvas Gómez et al. v. Mexico, known as the Atenco […]