Thursday 24 May 2018

Non-Consensual Sex Is Always Rape

Deciding if a rape has taken place should be straight forward, if consent is not given then it is rape so it is disheartening that Sweden have had to pass a law to clarify what shouldn't really need clarifying.         
After more than a decade of campaigning to change the law in the Scandinavian nation, Sweden has finally passed a law to make sex illegal without explicit consent but Sweden is just the tenth country in Europe to recognise non-consensual sex as rape.
The new legislation aligns Sweden with the UK, Belgium, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Iceland, Ireland and Germany.
Shockingly marital rape is still legal in 33 countries across the world. These include Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Lesotho, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Tanzania. UK courts only ruled that husbands were not entitled to have sex with wives regardless of whether or not they offer their consent in 1992.
Sweden’s decision comes at a time when a recent Europe-wide survey on the issue revealed widespread victim blaming and challenging views on consent. Nearly one-third of respondents said they believed that sex without consent is sometimes justified.
Sex without consent in any circumstances is rape and it really shouldn't be that hard to understand and i'm bewildered that to some, this concept is not understood and laws have to be imposed to make it a crime.

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