In response to the Working Group's call for inputs on Deprivation of Liberty of Women and Girls, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) and the SRI made a submission addressing the deprivation of liberty of women and girls by the State, institutions and families, which is often the result of the need to control women and girls, accompanied by the fear of sexuality, its expression and assertion.
Deprivation of liberty, including forced confinement and institutionalisation, is a tool used by dominant hegemonies of white supremacy, patriarchy and heteronormativity and adopted by all formal and informal institutions including the State and families. These hegemonies perpetuate the idea that gender is fixed and biological. Heteronormative and patriarchal notions can be found at all levels of society; some of the manifestations are obvious and public (such as legislation limiting women’s access to healthcare or education), while others are more hidden or ideological (such as the common belief that ‘boys will be boys’ when boys and men harass and exploit girls and women, and that ‘good girls are seen but not heard’).
Women and girls’ sexuality continues to be perceived as the dominion of everyone except women and girls themselves. Laws, policies and practices are constantly defined and redefined towards ‘acceptable’ behaviour of women and girls. Acceptable behaviour is then countered with ‘deviancy’ and the need to ‘correct’ this deviancy. Most often ‘deviancy’ is any behaviour or action that does not mirror the dominant community hegemonies including a non-adherence to the stereotypes of gender and sexuality.
Deprivation of liberty of women and girls by the State, institutions and families is often the result of the need to control women and girls, accompanied by the fear of sexuality, its expression and assertion. This phenomenon is not new, one can perhaps trace this to the idea of the ‘hysterical woman’ where hysteria was seen as woman-specific condition which needs to be treated with “abstinence” coupled with institutionalisation and all the cruelty that such institutionalisation brings with it. Remnants of this philosophy can be seen codified and adopted by laws in all parts of the world.