Unit 4 Sexual Violence
This unit covers a kind of violence in which girls and women are subjected to patriarchal domination.
This type of violence cannot be seen as isolated acts affecting particular individuals, because it is actually the result of a broader concept of violence in which men’s relationships with women are based on power and control.
Let’s remember the definition that the World Health Organisation (WHO) offers:
Sexual Violence is any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or otherwise directed, against a person’s sexuality using coercion, by any person regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work.*
* World Health Organization. Violence against women – Intimate partner and sexual violence against women. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2011.