Literature Review on Provision of Appropriate and Accessible ...

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freely chosen relationships has been recognised (LRC, 2005). Canadian
legal researchers Benedet & Grant’s review of case law and social
science literature on sexual assault and women with mental disabilities
[60] demonstrated <strong>Literature</strong> that <strong>Review</strong> sexual on autonomy Provision of and Appropriate freedom and from Accessible sexual
violence were Support not mutually to People exclusive with an Intellectual goals but Disability instead are who closely are linked
and mutually Experiencing reinforcing. Crisis Satisfying Pregnancy both of these goals is not easy, and
progress towards these goals is impeded for women with intellectual
disability by the competing stereotypes of hypersexuality and asexuality
(2007: 279).
In essence, the purpose of legislation should be to respect the private
rights of all citizens to enjoy family contact and personal or sexual
relationships (reflected in civil law) and should, so far as is practicable,
protect such persons against sexual exploitation (reflected in criminal
law) (BMA and the Law Society, 2004). Benedet & Grant (2007) examine
the debate about capacity and how high the threshold should be set. They
propose that the threshold needs to be high enough to protect women
who do not have the ability to understand what they are consenting to,
especially since such women are more likely than others to be repeated
targets of sexual assault. Equally, it should not be so high that women
with intellectual disability are prohibited by law from having a sexual life.
In both civil and criminal contexts, judgements about individuals’ capacity
to consent in personal relationships are extremely important. Overall,
however, as noted by the British Medical Association and the Law Society
(BMA, and the Law Society, 2004), current case law is more concerned
with the provisions available in the criminal law to protect vulnerable
people from potentially abusive relationships than with their civil law
rights to enter into voluntary relationships.
3.4 Sexual violence and exploitation
The research has shown that people with learning disabilities, and
particularly women, are not only just as likely to experience sexual
abuse in the same way as other adults and children do, but that they are
particularly vulnerable (Sobsey, 1994; McCarthy, 1999; McSherry, 1998).
60 The authors define ‘mental disability’ as including a developmental disability, a
psychiatric disability, or some other chronic nonepisodic mental disability.