Chemical castration for rapists: what are the cons of this initiative?

With 14 votes for the "yes" and six for the "no" passed to the second debate the initiative that seeks to impose chemical castration for rapists of minors

At the end of last week, the initiative that aims to impose as punishment the chemical castration for rapists of minors was approved in first debate, with 14 votes for the "yes" and six for the "no".

Leer en español: Castración química para violadores: ¿cuáles son los contras de esta iniciativa?

According to El Espectador, this treatment is considered as a complementary punishment to jail for rapists under the age of 14 and consists of supplying hormones that inhibit the production of testosterone, the sexual chemical substance of men.

Álvaro Hernán Prada, representative for the Democratic Center and promoter of the project, believes that this project will counteract the lamentable figures that are registered in the country.

According to the information of RCN Radio every two hours a child in Colombia is raped and only in 2017, 17,000 children in the country were sexually abused.

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On the other hand, according to the Institute of Legal Medicine, there is an increasing trend of rape against minors, since between January and August of this year there were about 16,000 cases of sexual abuse.

What are the cons of this initiative?

Carlos Valdés, director of Legal Medicine, told the congress that "nothing is obtained if that is reversed with sildenafil, which is over-the-counter, which is viagra."

On the other hand, the urologist Hernán Aponte points out that "more or less, the studies say that up to 92% of patients stop having sexual activity. It is not the whole world".

As is well known, rapists are usually people with a history of domestic violence and child abuse, so to think that is violated by hormonal imbalances is extremely easy.

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Gonzalo Gutiérrez, director of the Center for the Reimbursement and Child Care (Cran), believes that the solution to the sexual abuse of children should be based on a better understanding of their causes and what to do with those sociopaths.

Finally, the representative to the Chamber for Radical Change, José Daniel López, considers that chemical castration is contrary to "international law, unconstitutional".

"For a long time, international law, all human rights legislation, determined that any case of physical penal punishment that attacked or threatened human dignity should be restricted, and there is even a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for a case in Jamaica where the legislation of that country authorized a punishment against a convicted criminal and now the Inter-American Court ended up condemning the State, since its constitutional block contradicted the international norms in the matter of human rights", said the congressman.

LatinAmerican Post | Luisa Báez
Translated from “Castración química para violadores: ¿cuáles son los contras de esta iniciativa?”

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