Monday, March 08, 2010

rape in Nordic countries

"In Nordic countries, for example, the use of violence or threats of violence determine the seriousness of rape rather than the violation of a woman's sexual autonomy. The report Case Closed: Rape and Human Rights in the Nordic Countries, documents one case in Finland where a man forced a woman to have sexual intercourse in the disabled toilet of a car park by banging her head against the wall and twisting her arm behind her back. In the prosecutor's opinion, this was not rape as the violence used was of slight degree. The man was convicted of coercion into sexual intercourse and sentenced to a conditional (suspended) seven-month prison term. "