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Description
The current challenge to be pursued in this project is to provide immediate additional public and political influence / pressure on policy makers at the Ministry of Justice to change criminal offenses (KD) against sexual integrity, especially Article 170 (rape), Article 171 (sexual violence), and Article 172 (sexual abuse of a weak person), according to the concept of consent, Only YES means YES.
The project will be implemented in a consortium; the project applicant is the Association for Nonviolent Communication; The partner organisations in the project are: Association SOS Helpline for Women and Children, the Amnesty International Slovenia Association and the Legal Information Center of Non-Governmental Organisations - PIC.
Our target group in this project are women and girls (1st) who have experienced any form of sexual violence or are endangered by it. The basic message is that women at the level of KZ also need protection from any sexual violence, which, according to our firm belief, is currently possible only with the model of consent "Only YES means YES". Our target group is also political decision-makers (2nd), media (3rd) and the general public (4th).
Summary of project results
The definition of rape in the Slovenian Criminal Code is outdated and inconsistent with international law, including The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention. According to the existing legislation, rape is defined as a person being forced into sexual intercourse by threat, coercion or violence. This definition excludes many cases of sexual violence, since many victims become numb and unable to resist, while others don''t dare to in fear for their lives. At the same time, such definition of rape presupposes that a person is always ready for sexual intercourse and can only prevent it by actively resisting it.
This project brings together NGOs focusing on the protection of women from violence in order to advocate for the model “only yes means yes” that defines rape on the basis of consent: whether a person freely consented to sexual intercourse or not. If there is no clear and free consent, it is not sexual intercourse, but rape.
We will conduct a communication campaign to raise awareness about the importance of adopting the model “yes means yes”, while also lobbying the decision-makers to provide the victims of rape and sexual violence with the highest possible level of protection.
The main objective of the project was to successfully change the law and this objective was completed (the law is changed).