Integrating the Issue of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Detention Monitoring 2. WHAT IS SEXUAL AND GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE? Gender-based violence refers to a number of acts of physical, mental or social abuse (including sexual violence) that are “directed against a person because of his or her gender roles and expectations in a society or culture.”3 Sexual violence is a particular form of gender-based violence that encompasses any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or acts otherwise directed against a person’s sexuality using coercion by any person, regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting.4 Many acts of SGBV committed in places of deprivation of liberty may amount to torture and other ill-treatment. Rape constitutes torture when it is carried out by, at the instigation of, or with the consent or acquiescence of public officials. Acts of SGBV in places of deprivation of liberty can include, but are not limited to: • Rape, attempted rape and threats of rape; • Sexual assault, threats, harassment and misconduct; • Sexualized torture, including rape as torture, the application of electrical currents to the genitals and forced masturbation; • Criminal sexual contact (contact or sexual touching that does not involve elements of rape or sexual assault); • Forced prostitution; • Being stripped naked or being forced to undress in public or in front of others; • Unwarranted strip searches or invasive searches; • Improper behaviour during body searches, including invasive body searches; • Monitoring or voyeurism in cells, while changing clothes, bathing or in toilets; • Insults of a sexual nature; 3 UN Women, Glossary of Terms from Programming Essentials and Monitoring and Evaluations Sections, 31 October 2010, <http://www.endvawnow.org/en/articles/347-glossary-of-terms-from-programmeming-essentials-and-monitoring-and-evaluation-sections.html>. 4 UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), “Fact Sheet on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in the Context of Transitional Justice”, October 2014, <https://www.ohchr.org/documents/issues/women/wrgs/onepagers/sexual_and_gender-based_violence.pdf>. 9