International action against rape also would serve as a critical precedent for domestic responses to politically motivated rape. National laws generally mischaracterize rape as a crime against honor or custom, not as a crime against the physical integrity of the victim, and thus minimize its seriousness. This inaccurate portrayal of rape reduces the likelihood that rape victims targeted by political or military forces will receive justice, for often a woman's honor is more on trial than the alleged rapist's actions.
In India, for example, torture is a crime, and criminal law explicitly prescribes punishments for members of the police or other security forces who commit rape, but there is no evidence that authorities are willing to enforce these laws. Further, in rape cases, the credibility of the victim may be impeached by showing that she was of "generally immoral character." A survey of rape case judgments in the mid- to late 1980s, following legal reform in India, revealed that judges continued to base their decisions in rape cases largely on the character of the victim.4 And, in Peru, rape until recently was considered a "crime against honor." Thus, as a matter of law, rape was perceived as a harm to the community as represented by women's honor and not as an injury to the physical integrity of the victim herself.
4 Flavia Agnes, "Fighting Rape—Has Amending the Law Helped?" The Lawyers, (Bombay: February 1990), pp. 4-11.
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