7th November 2017

The World’s Shame: The Global Rape Epidemic

Around the world, rape and sexual abuse are everyday violent occurrences — affecting close to a billion women and girls over their lifetimes. However, despite the pervasiveness of these crimes, laws are insufficient, inconsistent, not systematically enforced, and, sometimes, promote violence.

To get to the bottom of these legal failures, Equality Now teamed up with international legal professionals to look into rape and sexual assault laws in 82 jurisdictions within 73 UN member states. If it were a medical disease, sexual violence would have serious attention and the funding to address it, from governments and independent donors alike.

 

 

Key takeaways and recommendations

In our February 2017 advocacy report, The World’s Shame – The Global Rape Epidemic: How Laws Around the World are Failing to Protect Women and Girls from Sexual Violence, we identify seven key gaps in global rape laws and call on governments and policymakers to fix them and to ensure justice for survivors of sexual violence.

The findings illustrate that governments still have a long way to go to transform their laws, policies, and practices into instruments to

  • prevent sexual violence
  • provide better access to justice for victims (including specialized services), and
  • effectively punish sexual violence crimes.

Explore more resources

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Imperative legal, policy, and institutional reforms for enhanced support and protection of child marriage victims and survivors

Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA), with support from Equality Now, conducted a focused study on child marriage in Zimbabwe, using Epworth as a case study. The research examined the country’s laws, policies, action plans, and other mechanisms meant to protect and support victims and survivors of child marriage.

Female genital mutilation amongst Sudanese migrants in Greater Cairo: Perceptions and trends

This report investigates the experience and attitudes of Sudanese migrants in Egypt about female genital mutilation (FGM).

Exploring legal aid mechanisms for survivors of sexual violence: Lessons from South Asia

The South Asian Movement for Accessing Justice (SAMAJ) presents this regional report on legal aid systems in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

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