Sexual Violence

SEXUAL VIOLENCE is coercion to engage in sexual activity or sexual touching without consent, continued sexual contact when asked to stop, or forcing someone to commit unsafe or humiliating sexual acts.

All sexual contacts without consent represent a criminal offence, classified as rape. This includes sexual touching or forcing your spouse to have sexual relations. Even if you are married, your spouse cannot force you to have sexual intercourse.

SEXUAL ABUSE: Forcing or attempting to force any sexual contact without prior  permission, e.g. marital rape, forcing sexual intercourse after physical violence has occurred, attacks on sexual parts of the body or treating another person in a sexually demeaning manner; forcing the victim to have sex with another person, on the Internet, or to pose for sexually explicit images against the person’s will

COERCION TO ENGAGE IN SEXUAL ACTIVITY AND REPRODUCTIVE CONTROL: When your partner sabotages your reproductive control efforts by requesting unprotected sex, lies about ‘penis withdrawal’, hides or destroys the birth control methods (e.g., by flushing birth control pills down the toilet or piercing condoms), prevents you from having an abortion or forces you to have an abortion.

Sexual abuse or rape is sometimes committed by strangers, but oftentimes by people you know, such as friends, partners, acquaintances, relatives or even a long-term partner or spouse. Domestic violence often results in partners sexually abusing their spouses. Sexual abuse can be verbal, visual or anything that involves sexual contact or attention. Anyone can be sexually abused regardless of whether it is a woman, a man, a child or an elderly person. In the legislation section, you can find a number of legal rules prohibiting and punishing sexual abuse.