SEXUAL HEALTH AND HUMAN RIGHTS A legal and ... - The ICHRP

from other forms of inequality as well, serving to reinforce hierarchies of power based on
class, race, ethnicity, caste, or other important social divisions. Sexual violence thus serves as
an extra-legal form of punishment and control, which may be administered informally by
state agents or by non-state actors (family members, neighbors, or workmates). It is a
draconian form of extra-legal punishment, intended to induce shame and diminish the
reputation of the victim of violence, resulting in social exclusion, damaged reputation, and
diminished life prospects.
In addition, sexual and non-sexual violence directed at sexually stigmatized persons reduce
the capacity of persons to access and utilize other rights--the right to health and health
services, freedom of movement, expression, political participation, livelihood, and free and
unforced marriage. Sexual and non-sexual violence directed at sexually stigmatized persons
promotes fear and terror, especially in conditions of conflict and ethnic cleansing, erodes
personal agency, and serves as a marker of stigma and subordination. National and
international law must provide for effect prevention, investigation, and forms of response.
The bodies of law that address law violence more directly include human rights,
humanitarian, refugee, and international criminal law.311
The right to live a life free from violence flows from the right to life recognised in all relevant
international conventions. The Constitutions of each of the research countries detail the right
to life (in some available to all persons; in others only to citizens) and provide that persons
may be deprived of life or liberty only in accordance with law.
For instance, in Nepal every person is guaranteed “the right to live with dignity” and cannot
be deprived of personal liberty except as provided by law. 312 Sri Lanka’s Constitution, on the
other hand, does not specify a right to life but couches personal liberty in the context of arrest
and detention, providing that if one’s personal liberty is deprived it may be done only as per
the prescribed procedure established by law. 313
In India, Article 21 of the Constitution guarantees not only the right to life but also the right
to personal liberty of all its citizens. Personal liberty has been held to mean not only liberty of
the person but it means liberty or rights attached to the person. In A. K. Gopalan v. State of
Madras, 314 the Supreme Court has discussed the meaning and scope of personal liberties to
include, “…next to the freedom of life comes the freedom of the person, which means that
one’s body shall not be touched, violated, arrested or imprisoned and one’s limbs shall not
be injured or maimed except under authority of law.”
The protection of children, men and women from sexual abuse and exploitation is central to
the protection of their personal liberties. Elsewhere in this paper, other aspects of the right to
life and liberty are discussed. For the purposes of this section, we focus on the content of the
right to life in the context of violence. The right against gender-based violence flows from the
right to life and from the recognition of women’s equality.
311 See international law section. Labor law may include some forms of violence in working conditions as well.
312 Article 12, Interim Constitution of Nepal, 2007
313 Article 13, Constitution of Sri Lanka, 1978. See Kottabadu Durage Sriyani Silva v Chanaka Iddamalgoda
and others, S.C. (FR) Application No. 471/2000 where the Supreme Court recognized the right to life as
implicit in some of the fundamental rights.
314 AIR 1950 SC 27. See also Kharak Singh v State of U.P AIR 1963 SC 1295
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