Intellectual disability and sexual crimes
the challenge of consent
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29105/dj5.9-160Keywords:
Delitos sexuales, Modelo social, Derechos Humanos, discapacidad intelectual, consentimientoAbstract
The social model, promoted by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, requires a profound change in the way criminal law operates. One of them consists of determining when a person with an intellectual disability is fully exercising their right to free sexuality and when they could be facing criminal conduct against them, since, sometimes, the difference between both extremes can be subtle. For these purposes, it is essential that the legal system leaves behind the medical model, which focused on the cognitive limitations of the person, and adopts an approach based on human rights, reasons for which it is crucial to assume that not always when a victim has The quality of a person with an intellectual disability can be referred to as lack or invalidity of consent, but rather it must be analyzed in the specific case. This investigation, of a documentary nature and based on doctrine and jurisprudence, will analyze the characteristics that said consent must have and the evidentiary elements necessary to assess it from the perspective of the current disability model, as well as the way in which each of these models can influence the interpretation of whether we are dealing with a sexual crime or whether the person with intellectual disabilities freely exercised their sexual rights.
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