Rape by proxy is a type of rape where an attacker makes use of another individual to physically assault the victim. [1]
In September 2007 a Utah woman raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints brought to court a rape by proxy case against the church leader Warren Jeffs whom she claims coerced her to marry her 19-year-old cousin and have sex with him when she was 14 years old. [2] Jeffs was convicted on the charge. [3]
Persons being forced to rape is a phenomenon researched in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where cases of forced incestuous assaults have been attested to by victims of rape during war times, these events mainly happen after a gang rape and entail fathers being forced to assault their daughters and sons forced to assault their mothers. [4] Among acts of sexual violence in the Tigray War in Ethiopia and Eritrea has been reported cases of men and boys being forced to rape their family members under threats of violence or death. [5] [6]
In 2014 in Prince George's County, Maryland, a woman and her daughters were the victim of several attempted assaults by men who were contacted by fake social media contacts posing to be the woman asking them to come to her home to engage in rape fantasies. An investigation revealed that it was the woman's ex-husband who had orchestrated the events. Brian Frosh and Kathleen Dumais of The Baltimore Sun noted that "though her ex-husband was eventually brought to justice, prosecutors were forced to cobble together a lengthy list of charges to accumulate a sentence that would fit this novel crime" and that the phenomenon is not unique and needs new legislation to handle. They also state that rape by proxy by misleading solicitations online is a unique type of conspiracy as "the recruiters and recruits never meet, never exchange anything of value and may never even communicate directly at all". [7] As a result of this case the state senate passed a bill outlawing "posting information about another person advertising that they would welcome being sexually assaulted". [8]
Some victims of rape or other sexual violence incidents are male. Historically, rape was thought to be, and defined as, a crime committed solely against females. This belief is still held in some parts of the world, but rape of males is now commonly criminalized and has been subject to more discussion than in the past.
Sexual violence is any harmful or unwanted sexual act—or attempt to obtain a sexual act through violence or coercion—or an act directed against a person's sexuality without their consent, by any individual regardless of their relationship to the victim. This includes forced engagement in sexual acts, attempted or completed, and may be physical, psychological, or verbal. It occurs in times of peace and armed conflict situations, is widespread, and is considered to be one of the most traumatic, pervasive, and most common human rights violations.
In scholarly literature and criminology, gang rape, also called serial gang rape, party rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape, is the rape of a single victim by two or more violators. Gang rapes are forged on shared identity, religion, ethnic group, or race. There are multiple motives for serial gang rapes, such as for sexual entitlement, asserting sexual prowess, war, punishment, and, in up to 30% of cases, for targeting racial minorities, religious minorities, or ethnic groups.
Violence against women (VAW), also known as gender-based violence and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), is violent acts primarily committed by men or boys against women or girls. Such violence is often considered a form of hate crime, committed against persons specifically because they are of the female gender, and can take many forms.
Rape is a type of sexual assault initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, under threat or manipulation, by impersonation, or with a person who is incapable of giving valid consent.
Rape by gender classifies types of rape by the sex and gender of both the rapist and the victim. This scope includes both rape and sexual assault more generally. Most research indicates that rape affects women disproportionately, with the majority of people convicted being men; however, since the broadening of the definition of rape in 2012 by the FBI, more attention is being given to male rape, including females raping males.
Statistics on rape and other acts of sexual assault are commonly available in industrialized countries, and have become better documented throughout the world. Inconsistent definitions of rape, different rates of reporting, recording, prosecution and conviction for rape can create controversial statistical disparities, and lead to accusations that many rape statistics are unreliable or misleading.
Rape is a type of sexual assault involving sexual intercourse, or other forms of sexual penetration, carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or against a person who is incapable of giving valid consent, such as one who is unconscious, incapacitated, has an intellectual disability, or is below the legal age of consent. The term rape is sometimes casually inaccurately used interchangeably with the term sexual assault.
Wartime sexual violence is rape or other forms of sexual violence committed by combatants during an armed conflict, war, or military occupation often as spoils of war, but sometimes, particularly in ethnic conflict, the phenomenon has broader sociological motives. Wartime sexual violence may also include gang rape and rape with objects. It is distinguished from sexual harassment, sexual assaults and rape committed amongst troops in military service.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the east of the country in particular, has been described as the "Rape Capital of the World", and the prevalence and intensity of all forms of sexual violence has been described as the worst in the world. Human Rights Watch defines sexual violence as "an act of a sexual nature by force, or by threat of force or coercion", and rape as "a form of sexual violence during which the body of a person is invaded, resulting in penetration, however slight, of any part of the body of the victim, with a sexual organ, or of the anal or genital opening of the victim with any object or other part of the body."
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol in October 2005.
Marital rape is illegal in all 50 US states, though the details of the offence vary by state.
Rape in Egypt is a criminal offense with penalties ranging from lifetime sentence to capital punishment. Marital rape is legal. By 2008, the U.N. quoted Egypt's Interior Ministry's figure that 20,000 rapes take place every year, although according to the activist Engy Ghozlan (ECWR), rapes are 10 times higher than the stats given by Interior Ministry, making it 200,000 per year. Mona Eltahawy has also noted the same figure (200,000), and added that this was before the revolution.
A marry-your-rapist law, marry-the-rapist law, or rape-marriage law is a rule of rape law in a jurisdiction under which a man who commits rape, sexual assault, statutory rape, abduction or other similar act is exonerated if he marries his female victim, or in some jurisdictions at least offers to marry her. The "marry-your-rapist" law is a legal way for the accused to avoid prosecution or punishment.
Filsan Abdullahi Ahmed, also called Filsan Abdi, is an Ethiopian activist and politician from the Somali Region. She is a founder of the Nabad project, a satellite television station for promoting communication and peace in Somali Region and between the Somali and Oromo communities.
Sexual violence in the Tigray War included, according to the United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, people forced to rape family members, "sex in exchange for basic commodities", and "increases in the demand for emergency contraception and testing for sexually transmitted infections".
All sides of the Tigray war have been repeatedly accused of committing war crimes since it began in November 2020. In particular, the Ethiopian federal government, the State of Eritrea, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and Amhara Special Forces (ASF) have been the subject of numerous reports of both war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Yikono is a grassroots women's rights group based in Tigray Region in Ethiopia that is opposed to gender-based violence.
Sexual violence in the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been committed by Armed Forces of Russia, including the use of mass rape as a weapon of war. According to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, the victims of sexual assault by Russian soldiers ranged from 4 years old to over 80 years old.
Rape in Ethiopia is highly prevalent, despite the case is still underreported due to fear, and shame of violence, especially in women. There are variety factors that contribute rape, and is controversial topic. Major factors that cause rape include societal norms encompassing masculinity, gender inequality, anger, sadism of the rapists as well as poverty. The Ethiopian society generally tolerated such violence and defend the value. They thought that women would tend to follow Westernized culture, even this notion is supported by educated people. There are also abduction, child marriage, and sex works in urban areas.