| Rape |
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| Types |
| Effects and motivations |
| By country |
| During conflicts |
| Laws |
| Related articles |
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Papua New Guinea (PNG) is often labelled as potentially the worst place in the world for gender-based violence. [1] [2]
| Rape |
|---|
| Types |
| Effects and motivations |
| By country |
| During conflicts |
| Laws |
| Related articles |
|
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is often labelled as potentially the worst place in the world for gender-based violence. [1] [2]
According to a 1992 survey by the PNG Law Reform Commission, an estimated 67% of wives have been beaten by their husbands with close to 100% in the Highlands Region. [3] [4] In urban areas, one in six women interviewed needed treatment for injuries caused by their husbands. [3] The most common forms of violence include kicking, punching, burning and cutting with knives, accounting for 80% to 90% of the injuries treated by health workers. [5]
According to a 1993 Survey by the PNG Medical Research Institute, an estimated 55% of women have experienced forced sex, in most cases by men known to them. [3] [4] [5] Abortion in Papua New Guinea is illegal unless it is necessary to save the woman's life, so those who experience pregnancy from rape have no legal way of terminating forced pregnancies.
UNICEF describes the children in Papua New Guinea as some of the most vulnerable in the world. [6] According to UNICEF, nearly half of reported rape victims are under 15 years of age and 13% are under seven, [7] while a report by ChildFund Australia citing former Parliamentarian Dame Carol Kidu claimed 50% of those seeking medical help after rape are under 16, 25% are under 12 and 10% are under eight. [8] Up to 50 percent of girls are at risk of becoming involved in sex work, or being internally trafficked. [6] Many are forced into marriage from 12 years of age under customary law. [6] One in three sex workers are under 20 years of age. [6]
Initiation rites of prepubescent boys as young as seven among groups in the highlands of New Guinea involved sexual acts with older males. Fellatio and semen ingestion were found among the Sambia, the Baruya [9] and Etoro. Among the Kaluli people, this involved anal sex to deliver semen to the boy. These rites often revolve around beliefs that women represent a cosmic disorder. [9]
A 2013 study found that 7.7% of men have sexually assaulted another male. [10]
A 2013 study by Rachel Jewkes and colleagues, on behalf of the United Nations Multi-country Cross-sectional Study on Men and Violence research team, found that 41% of men on Bougainville Island admit to coercing a non-partner into sex, [10] and 59% admit to having sex with their partner when she was unwilling. [11] According to this study, about 14.1% of men have committed multiple perpetrator rape. [10] In a survey in 1994 by the PNG Institute of Medical Research, approximately 60% of men interviewed reported to have participated in gang rape (known as lainap) at least once. [3]
In urban areas, particularly slum areas, Raskol gangs often require raping women for initiation reasons. [12] Peter Moses, one of the leaders of the "Dirty Dons 585" Raskol gang, stated that raping women was a “must” for the young members of the gang. [12] In rural areas, when a boy wants to become a man, he may go to an enemy village and kill a pig to be accepted as an adult, while in the cities "women have replaced pigs". [12] Moses, who claimed to have raped more than 30 women himself, said, “And it is better if a boy kills her afterwards, there will be less problems with the police”. [12]
Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia. Its capital, located along its southeastern coast, is Port Moresby. The country is the world's third largest island country, with an area of 462,840 km2 (178,700 sq mi).
Gang rape, also called serial gang rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape in scholarly literature, 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 another race, ethnic group or religion.
Rape culture is a setting, studied by several sociological theories, in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality. Behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, slut-shaming, sexual objectification, trivializing rape, denial of widespread rape, refusing to acknowledge the harm caused by sexual violence, or some combination of these. It has been used to describe and explain behavior within social groups, including prison rape and in conflict areas where war rape is used as psychological warfare. Entire societies have been alleged to be rape cultures. It is associated with rape fantasy and rape pornography.
Raskol is a generic term for a criminal or group of criminals in Papua New Guinea, primarily in the larger cities, including Port Moresby and Lae. Raskol is a Tok Pisin word derived from the English word rascal and is currently used in Papua New Guinea to refer to gang members or criminals in general.
Statistics on rape and other sexual assaults 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 create controversial statistical disparities, and lead to accusations that many rape statistics are unreliable or misleading.
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually 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 used interchangeably with the term sexual assault.
There are many theories explaining the causes of sexual violence. These theories include military conquest, socioeconomics, anger, power, sadism, traits, ethical standards, laws, and evolutionary pressures that lend some explanation to the causes of sexual violence. Most of the research on the causes of sexual violence has only been done on male offenders and has been target of criticism.
One of the most common forms of sexual violence around the world is that which is perpetrated by an intimate partner, leading to the conclusion that one of the most important risk factors for people in terms of their vulnerability to sexual assault is being married or cohabiting with a partner. Other factors influencing the risk of sexual violence include:
Surveys of victims of crime have been undertaken in many cities and countries, using a common methodology to aid comparability, and have generally included questions on sexual violence. The United Nations has conducted extensive surveys to determine the level of sexual violence in different societies. According to these studies, the percentage of women reporting having been a victim of sexual assault ranges from less than 2% in places such as La Paz, Bolivia (1.4%), Gaborone, Botswana (0.8%), Beijing, China (1.6%), and Manila, Philippines (0.3%), to 5% or more in Istanbul, Turkey (6.0%), Buenos Aires, Argentina (5.8%), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (8.0%), and Bogota, Colombia (5.0%).
With 1.28 percent of the adult population estimated by UNAIDS to be HIV-positive in 2006, Papua New Guinea has one of the most serious HIV/AIDS epidemics in the Asia-Pacific subregion. Although this new prevalence rate is significantly lower than the 2005 UNAIDS estimate of 1.8 percent, it is considered to reflect improvements in surveillance rather than a shrinking epidemic. Papua New Guinea accounts for 70 percent of the subregion's HIV cases and is the fourth country to be classified as having a generalized HIV epidemic.
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 rate of sexual violence in South Africa is among the highest recorded in the world. During 2015/16, there were 51,895 crimes of a sexual nature reported to the South African Police Service.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a constitutional parliamentary democracy with an estimated population of 6,187,591. Police brutality, provincial power struggles, violence against women, and government corruption all contribute to the low awareness of basic human rights in the country.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) has a population of 6.8 million, nearly half of which is under 18 years of age. Public trust in the justice system has been eroded, and the country’s significant crime problem exacerbated, by brutal responses from police against those they suspect of having committed offences, and the routine violence, abuse and rape carried out by police against persons, including children, within their custody. Many incidents are cases of opportunistic abuses of power by police instead of their following official processes. While a raft of measures have been assembled in order to improve conditions and processes for youths within the justice system, their success has been hampered by a severe lack of implementation, insufficient resources, and failure to impose appropriate penalties on authorities for failure to adhere to their provisions.
Domestic violence in South Africa has been viewed as a taboo subject until recently. In 2012, just over one-third of violent crimes committed against women ended in criminal prosecution. Legislation has been passed to help improve the quality of life for victims of abuse and to prevent further abuse from taking place. Although the movement against domestic violence is a relatively new movement, it has been making great strides in the country since the 1990s.
In 2007, the U.S. Department of State reported 31,833 rapes in China, but no similar report by the Chinese government has been made available. Same-sex sexual assault between male adults was made illegal in late 2015. Domestic and foreign victims of sex trafficking in China are raped.
Rachel Jewkes is Executive Scientist: Research Strategy in Office of the President and former Unit Director of the Gender and Health Unit of the South Africa Medical Research Council, based in Pretoria, South Africa. She also serves as Director of the What Works to Prevent Violence Global Programme, as well as of the Secretary of the Sexual Violence Research Initiative. She has been a member of the National Council Against Gender-Based Violence in South Africa and the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board and the WHO's Strategic and Technical Advisory Committee for HIV-AIDS (STAC-HIV). Jewkes studied Medicine, receiving a Masters in Community Medicine (MSc) and a Doctorate in Medicine (MD) from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, University of London. She is an Honorary Professor in the faculty of Health Sciences, School of Public Health at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and is an A-rated researcher with the South African National Research Foundation. Jewkes moved from England to South Africa in 1994.
Women's rights in Papua New Guinea are severely restricted due to poverty, violence, limited access to education and health care, and patriarchal cultural practices, especially witch hunts. Cases of violence against women in PNG are under reported, due mainly to gender-based violence being socially legitimized. There is also a lack of services for women who experience violence. There are reports of sexual abuse by police officers, on arrest and whilst in police custody. These incidents lack documentation or investigation, consequently, perpetrators are rarely prosecuted or punished. The government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) has introduced legislation to combat these issues, though with limited success.
Prostitution in Papua New Guinea is generally regarded as illegal but widely practiced with the laws rarely enforced. Prostitution occurs on the streets, in bars, brothels and in logging, mining, and palm oil areas. In 2010 it was estimated there were 2.000 prostitutes in the capital, Port Moresby. The drought in 2016 caused a rise in prostitution. Many of the women have turned to sex work due to poverty or unemployment.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is officially known as the Independent State of Papua New Guinea after gaining absolute independence from Australia on September 16, 1975. PNG is the largest country in the South Pacific region and comprises the eastern side of New Guinea including its islands. Crime in Papua New Guinea, both violent and non-violent have contributed to the developing country's crime rate being one of the highest in the world.
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