Let’s Talk about Sexual Violence.

On the last episode for this program, our resource persons were our very own organisers Swastika Dangal and Deepika Paswan. In this session we discussed on the serious topic of sexual violence. We have been hearing about a lot of sexual abuse related issues through media, and we hear about the offenders running scot-free with anyone none the wiser about who they are. Some of us have suffered through such a moment where we have felt violated but we either feel ashamed or don’t know how-tos, about taking any further actions. Some of us don’t even know what we go through is actually an abuse. Our goal this time was to over-turn this sad reality, so our participants realise a situation of sexual violence as what it is when they come across one.

Swastika Dangal is third year undergraduate student at Kathmandu School of Law. She has worked in her own Project “Women’s Right Starts at Home” which is about Menstrual Health, Hygiene and Taboos. She believes that as she is part of the system and civil society, she has the responsibility to create change and this project is her step towards creating change.

Deepika Paswan is recently pursuing her B.A.L.L.B degree in Kathmandu School of Law. She has been the part of the campaign “Women Rights Start at Home”. She believes that the change start from us and everyone is responsible for positive change in the society. Being a youth, she believes that it is our responsibility to initiate a change we want to see. This project is a small effort towards the change.

While talking about sexual violence, the most important element is the question of consent. With this topic, we commenced our final session for the program.

What is constitutes a consent in sexual intercourse?

Consent means agreeing to do something. For sexual intercourse, it is when a person willingly with full consciousness assents to actively participate in sexual activities. Only saying “Yes.” and showing clear interest in the activities means a consent to take part in the activity.

What does not mean consent?

Sexual Violence

When a person’s sexual activities make another person feel violated, it means Sexual violence. It comprises of the violation of integrity, choice, interests along with physical violence.

Who could be the victim of sexual violence?

They can be any person; of any age, family member or non-family member, relatives or a stranger. But the actual cases of sexual violence are mostly seen to be the vulnerable groups like children, woman, disabled or queer groups.

The violator can be males majority of the times, but they can be minors or in some cases females and queer people as well. They can be stranger, a known person, or your own family members or relatives.

Question: Is sexual violence only related to our reproductive organs or is there other mental forms as well?

Miss Dangal: Thanks for the question. We’ll discuss about it now.

How can we know an act is sexual violence?

It can be in any form: physical or mental. Let’s categorize!

Sexual nature:

• Flashing: Showing or exposing any private sexual body parts to an unwanted person is a sexual violence.

• Physical contact: Physical contact with such organs to other person without their consent and Physical contact to such organs of other people without consent is also sexual violence.

• Stalking: Stalking other people for sexual gratification and pleasure without their knowledge is also sexual violence.

• Other activities: Using sexual language, showing explicit contents without consent etc is also sexual violence.

• Any other act a woman feels uncomfortable in.

Activities of non-sexual nature: There are some of the activities which are not sexual in nature but still fall under sexual violence. Though our domestic law does not recognize them as sexual violence, but international practices have labelled it as such.

• denial of reproductive rights

• denial of abortion rights

• hampering the other persons fertility without their knowledge

• prohibition of sexual activities of adults

Types of sexual violence:

Rape: The definition of rape has been changing with the changing time. Forcing anyone to have sexual intercourse is Rape. It does not only mean penetration of sexual organs in the vaginal or anal orifice of the body without consent. Now, the definition of rape has broadened to insertion of any other objects in the vaginal or anal orifice without consent or with the intension to harm others is also rape. It also includes touching with private parts in the definition.

Sexual Harassment: It covers a range of sexual violations like touching body parts like thighs, neck, lips, back etc. without consent, vocal sexual abuse, flashing, stalking, catcalling, showing unwanted pornography.

Now, how do we differentiate sexual harassment from a mistake or a normal behavior?

Well, when a person does something inappropriate, we tend to get the vibe. We might feel violated or intuitively being sensitive about such sexual intensions may come at play. Sometimes you intuitively know if the person walking behind us is stalking us or just casually passing by.

Online Sexual harassment: Following activities lie under sexual harassment:

• Passing nasty comment on online platform, on photos, statuses or in messages.

• Sharing private nude pictures or mms in the online platforms.

• Sharing private videos or the videos of a person’s sexual activity online without their consent.

Incest: Incest is a sexual contact between family relative’s family members. In some communities, marriage between the children of the siblings and between relatives is acceptable norm. Such relationships would be insect in such communities, and they are considered unacceptable and a crime and punishable by law. In some Mongolian communities, marriage between close relatives is acceptable but in Khas Arya community it is strictly prohibited. Besides this, sexual relation between mother-son, father-daughter will be considered rape.

Sexual violence in intimate contact: The sexual violence between two people in an intimate relationship is due to the power dynamics in the relationship. When a person in a relationship remains oppressed from the start due to their physical/emotional or economical vulnerability, they are more likely to suffer from sexual abuse in that relationship. It may also come in forms of domestic violence.

Another reason will be the assumption of consent due to the established relationship in a from of marriage or other ways. Sometimes it is assumed that a consent once given means it remains given throughout the duration of relationship. Or a partner may feel guilty denying sexual offers to the other because they feel their “relationship” means there is an obligation to go along with it.

In Nepal, marital rape has been recognized as a crime. When someone rapes their married partner, it is marital rape.

Question: In some Muslim communities, they prohibit the use of condoms. Does this come under harassment?

Miss Dangal: I think this concept is culturally and religiously backed. It is believed that a child is a boon from the god, but this clearly violates their rights to contraceptives and family planning. Then, this becomes sexual abuse.

Question: You said stalking is sexual harassment. We stalk celebrities habitually on the internet every day. Will this also consist sexual harassment?

Miss Dangal: This depends on our intensions while stalking celebrities and what we do when stalking. Do we pass nasty comment, or harass them by writing nasty sexual messages? Doing this would violate their integrity, so this may be sexual violence. Simply following them is not harassment.

Miss Paswan: Whenever you do certain act, it is supported by an intension of that act. If your intension is to harm someone by violating them sexually or physically by your stalking then it is sexual violence, if not then it is not sexual violence.

Miss Dangal: Yes, intension plays a huge role in this. For example, we keep seeing in an advertisement where an innocent man is wrongfully accused of sexual harassment when i.e. mistakenly touches a woman. But it turned out he did not have any intension to harm the woman.

Question: We can not easily find out someone’s intension even at crowded public places like bus, can we?

Miss Dangal: Yes, sometimes distinguishing that demarcation between sexual intension and innocent mistake is quite difficult as you said. You may touch some one mistakenly and be wrongly accused of something you never intended to do. It may be difficult to know the intension in crowded place but if a person knowingly touches you in a spacious place, their intension will be clear.

Miss Paswan: If you face such a situation where you feel comfortable you should call that person out. The definition itself says that any situation where “a woman is feeling uncomfortable” as already stated before. It all depends on your intuition and feeling and not theirs. You should voice your discomfort. You will eventually find if it is mistake later.

Question: You said before that the definitions of rape keep changing. Is unwanted touching in private parts rape or attempt to rape and how is it different from sexual harassment?

Miss Dangal: Yes, there is a difference between rape and attempt to rape. Rape means inserting penis in vagina or anus forcefully, inserting objects or hands, or touching someone sexually with an intension to cause orgasm, whereas sexual harassment is touching others body parts without consent with an intention of sexually violating them but without intension for any sexual orgasm.

Question: Is masturbation in public places, sexual harassment?

Miss Dangal: Well, if they do it with an intension to target and offend others then it may be sexual harassment. If they do it just for their personal pleasure without any intension to harm others, it might fall into public offence and not directly sexual violence.

What are the causes of sexual violence?

The social media is abundant of people saying that girls who wear short clothes incite rape.

Do you think that clothes matter for the increasing number of rape cases we hear every day?

Our participants:

Apart from dresses, what could be the cause for rape?

Our participants:

Yes, all the reasons for sexual violence and rape has been listed out by participants. Of course, nothing is justifiable for sexual violence, but some causes needs to be put in consideration for prevention measures.

• Drugs and intoxication could be a way to incite the perpetrator, or it could be the idea of revenge. There are many causes for sexual violence.

• Natural disasters such as flood, landslides etc. and the present pandemic situations has also shown a rise in sexual violence committed. Similarly, the earthquake disaster in 2071 B.S. also showed an increase in sexual violence and girls trafficking.

• Poverty is directly proportional to power. The more people are poor the more they are susceptible to be victims. The powerful consider themselves above law and poor cannot attain justice.

• Keeping sexual activities in a bad light in a moral code has increased the curiosity of the

• forbidden to adolescents and teenagers alike. This curiosity may lead them to a bad path if they are not addressed properly.

• During crisis and wars, the vulnerable groups like children and women become easy to target.

• Pornography, though debatable, may also be a cause for sexual violence. It sets an expectation on how a sex should be, which sometimes cannot be enacted in real life. It acts as a way to increase the urge, which might lead to rape.

• Normalizing sexual violence or a ‘Rape Culture’.

What is a “Rape Culture”?

Rape culture is a culture in which the rape is normalize by the society. In such a place

• The society blames the victims for being raped.

• Rape remains unpunished.

• Misogynistic languages, objectification of women bodies happen.

• Woman do not get their rights and are confined to the four walls for ‘safekeeping’.

The consequences!

What are the consequences to the victims of sexual violence?

Physical Consequences: The victims suffer from such consequences in their body visible outwardly,

• Bruises

• Vaginal bleeding

• Wounds around the genitals and around the body

• Swelling around the vagina

• Soreness

• Pregnancy

• Sexually transmitted diseases

Psychological Consequences:

• Long lasting psychological trauma

• Depression

• Post-traumatic stress disorder, where the victim feels anxious, fearful, stressed all the time after the traumatic event and cannot cope further.

• Panic Attacks, where the victim feels sudden fear and anxiety even though there I no immediate danger

• Dissociation, your brain works to dissociate you from emotions to cope with the traumatic experiences

Societal Consequences:

• Female victims are rejected in the society

• Society renders rape victims unmarriageable

• They are stigmatized by the society. They fear admitting that they were abused.

Preventive Measures

What could be the preventive measures for sexual abuse?

Our participants:

• We could bring inclusive laws to encompass all genders, sexual orientations, and communities.

• Promoting norms that encourage crimes such as sexual violence.

• Improving the security of the surrounding and creating an environment where a person is protected against such threats.

• Giving equal legal aid to any families despite their economic background.

• Children should be made aware at young age about good touch and bad touch so that they can identify a sexual abuse when they come across one.

In Nepal…

Nepal has enough laws against rape and sexual violation. The only thing lacking is its implementations. Why? Because politics plays huge role in justice dispensation, which has been a roadblock in dispensation of justice.

Nepal has recognized following as sexual offences, but not limited to:

• Rape

• Marital Rape

• Incest (except in cultures where such relationship is allowed)

• Pedophilia (making child victim to sexual violence.)

Life imprisonment situations:

• Father-daughter, and mother-son incest

• Rape with murder

Question: If a 14-year-old brother tries to rape his 7-year-old sister (it happened in a village), what should be a correct action for him? Should he be punished, or should he be kept in a rehabilitation centre to change his mentality?

Miss Paswan: Here the victim and perpetrator, both are minor. In Nepal, when a minor commits a crime, they are sent to juvenile reform centre.

Some points to take note:

• Victim has the right to self-defense. Murdering someone in self-defense during rape is not punishable if proved in court.

• Rape should be reported within 1 year of the incident.

• If the pregnancy is due to rape, it can be aborted up to 18 months.

• If you have been held hostage and your capturer is raping you or you are being raped in such situation, the limitation of reporting is increased up to 3 months immediately after you are free from the capture.

What to do when you face these situations?

The first thing you can do is file your complaint in the police station.

Any online harassment situation can be reported to cyber bureau.

You can call on 014219044 Or email on < cyberbureau@nepalpolice.gov.np >. Your information will be confidential here if you wish.

You can report Facebook and Instagram harassment posts.

At last

Just knowing what constitutes sexual violence is not enough, one needs to speak up against it, educate people about it and put effort for improvements. The program ended by an enlightening and informative session by our organizers, our participants left wanting more of this program. The family of “Lets talk; Let’s get embarrassed” learned a lot from each other. Now, we are assured that when our participants go in to the society, they will be beacon of change, with a glow of knowledge bringing awareness to their homes, community and society about sexual reproductive health without any rosy hue of embarrassment on their faces. After all Knowledge is power!

To all the good journeys ahead, Cheers!

😄