A/HRC/47/26 Pacific focused on human rights standards in national legislation;15 and Sisters For Change produced a report on the criminalization of marital rape and sexual violence across the Commonwealth.16 15. Many United Nations and regional human rights bodies have produced significant guidance on applicable standards on violence against women, but there is no holistic and specific thematic report on rape as a human rights violation. In the light of this, and in recognition of the general shift in perception and in public rejection of sexual violence and rape – which have not yet been followed by the necessary legal changes of mostly conservative criminal laws at the national level – the Special Rapporteur decided to dedicate this report to the theme of rape as a human rights violation, focusing on States’ responsibility to prevent and eradicate it. 16. Although many of the Special Rapporteur’s recommendations in the present report also apply to the criminalization and prosecution of other forms of sexual violence, the report is focused specifically on rape in order to reflect developments at the international level that have also distinguished it from other types of sexual violence and defined its constitutive elements. While in some States rape is criminalized as a form of sexual assault, expanded from former narrow definitions of rape, these differences in terminology are not an obstacle to comparisons related to the harmonization of its constitutive elements for its definition, criminalization and prosecution. By focusing on rape, the report also connects the constitutive elements of its definition with other equally important provisions of criminal law, such as mitigating circumstances, statutes of limitation and age of sexual consent, as well as criminal procedural provisions on the protection of victims/survivors, in order to address them as interrelated provisions of the legal framework needed for the effective criminalization of rape. 17. For the preparation of the report, on 27 May 2020 the Special Rapporteur held an online expert group meeting, in collaboration with Equality Now. The outcome of that meeting was a report on rape as a grave and systematic human rights violation and genderbased violence against women, which complements the present report.17 18. In order to collect information on the current criminalization of rape in national laws, the Special Rapporteur distributed a questionnaire to States and other stakeholders on 9 April 2020.18 The 207 submissions received, along with information publicly available, reveal the significant gaps between States’ obligations and international human rights standards on rape.19 19. In this report, the Special Rapporteur addresses the primary responsibility of States to effectively and with due diligence prevent, criminalize and prosecute rape in accordance with international legal standards, applicable both in peacetime and during conflict, by: (a) Providing an overview of applicable international human rights and criminal law standards needed for the effective criminalization and prosecution of rape, based on a victim-centred approach; (b) Supporting and encouraging a process of review and harmonization of national criminal laws and practices with international standards on rape; 15 16 17 18 19 4 International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific, Addressing Rape as a Human Rights Violation: The Role of International Human Rights Norms and Instruments (Kuala Lumpur, 2007). Sisters For Change, The Criminalisation of Marital Rape and Intimate Partner Sexual Violence across the Commonwealth (London, 2019). Available at http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/SR/Call_on_Rape/EGM_ENSR_Report.pdf. The questionnaire and submissions are available at http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/SRWomen/Pages/SRVAW.aspx. The Special Rapporteur is profoundly grateful to all those who made submissions, many of which went beyond the questionnaire, and to Christine Chinkin and Jane Connors, who provided their comments on the draft report.