Chemical castration in Argentina for rapists?

Chemical castration in Argentina for rapists?

It was announced by officials in Argentina’s Mendoza province on the 21^st of March, 2010, that chemical castration has been authorized for rapists convicted in the province. The move came after what the authorities called, a “significant rise” in the number of sexual assaults last year.

The law has largely been welcomed as a progressive law, which will, in the long run, prevent the recurrence of these atrocities as the convicted rapists will be prevented from doing it again. Rape, like pedophilia, is seen as a crime that has at its root a psychological affliction that prompts many rapists to become repeat offenders when released. 

In the Mendoza case, the chemical castration will be administered only to those convicts who request it (in return for a reduced sentence) according to Argentina news sources, and they will receive counseling as part of a holistic approach to rehabilitation.

"By using medication that lowers the person's sexual desire and with psychological treatment, the person can be reintroduced into society without being a threat," Mendoza Governor Celso Jaque said.

Critics of the program point out that the treatment is reversible if the medication is not longer used, and that the effects on different people will be relative.

This is because rape is not a biological desire, it is seldom related to a desire for sex, rather it is psychological, the need to control someone or inflict pain on another individual. For this reason, the chemical castration will only take away a sexual delinquent’s chemical desire for sex, but his pathology will remain the same, his desire to make someone submit to his will.

In this way, rape with use of the penis may simply be replaced by rape with use of an object. And currently, Argentina does not recognize the use of an object as rape, but rather sexual assault, which carries a more lenient penalty.

The success of the program in Mendoza however, will determine whether it is feasible to apply it to the rest of Argentina. Although the law could be seen as a step towards drastically reducing the occurrence of such a heinous crime, it does raise some contradictions in the laws of the country in general.

A girl who is raped and then falls pregnant cannot have an abortion unless the pregnancy is putting her health or life at risk. Amnesty International calls this a violation of the victim’s human rights as it ‘revictimises’ them by forcing them to go through the trauma of labour, which is in effect the result of the trauma of rape.

Of course, the issue here becomes somewhat different. Abortion is about the life of the fetus, this is what the crux of the debate is centered around.

None-the-less, it does seem contradictory, perhaps even unfair, that a rapist can get a woman pregnant and then get a lighter sentence in return for having his testicles stop working temporarily, while his victim must carry, give birth to and then look after or give up for adoption, the product of his assault.

And just as he is released, to possibly commit the crime again, she will only be at the beginning of the road to some form of mental recovery.