Sexual abuse as a crime against humanity and the right to privacy

Abstract

Over the last three decades, rape and sexual abuse of women as repressive practices during war and dictatorial regimes are gradually being recognized as specific forms of human rights violations. Increasingly they come to be considered as crimes against humanity within the international regime of human rights law. In Argentina, although the existence of such crimes has been known since the nineteen eighties, only now is testimony in trials against repressors being taken as evidence for specific rape-based convictions. Under these circumstances, the women involved face a personal and political dilemma, between the urge to talk and the right to intimacy and silence. The political and moral character of rape emerges jointly under these circumstances, posing a paradoxical situation.