RESEARCH: The legal system and sexual violence towards females

https://www.devex.com/news/how-the-legal-system-is-failing-to-protect-women-and-girls-from-sexual-violence-89573

Article published: 6th March 2017

This article focuses on the legal systems around the world, and the subject of sexual violence. This would be useful for me to look at the impact and influence of other countries on the English legal system.

"How the legal system is failing to protect women and girls from sexual violence".

• The term "failed" is a very strong accusation to make against the legal system.

Below are the notes I made from reading the article:

• "The legal system is failing to protect women and girls from sexual violence in many developing countries - but also in parts of Europe, in some cases enabling rape, according to a new report by human rights organisations Equality Now".
• "The Rape Law Report which looked at laws in 82 jurisdictions from 2014 and 2015, found that a perpetrator of rape for sexual assault can escape punishment by marrying the victim in nine countries; that rape laws are only applicable in many jurisdictions if the victim can demonstrate that they were unable to resist the attack; and martial rape is expressly legal in at least 10 countries - in four of these, even if the wife is underage."
• "Worldwide, one in 10 girls have experienced rape or sexual assault by the age of twenty, and one in three women experience sexual or domestic violence during their lifetime, according to U.N. figures."
• "'The law in too many places does not protect women and girls from rape and sexual assault, not does it protect them they have been violated in terms of accessing justice and getting remedy, particularly in those countries where the law seems to promote violence through... allow[ing] rapists to marry their victims and not be punished,' said Antonia Kirkland, legal advisor at Equality Now.
• "Changing cultural attitudes towards sexual violence against women is 'the most difficult nut to crack,' said [Alejandro] Alvarez, because of prevailing patriarchal attitudes in many places, w hitch can lead men to believe 'that they are entitled to beat a woman or to kill a woman, and that it is to as bad as dong the same thing to a fellow man' he said."

In conclusion, I believe that this article is useful in the sense of understanding the laws in other countries. I will look more into their influence upon the English legal system. The article is from a recruitment and enterprise site, which questions the reliability of the article as it is not a well known organisation (named Devex).

(In the post above, I have noted my findings for further use, all information is from the link at the top of this page.)