KINGSTON, Jamaica — The United Nations is recommending that Jamaica’s definition of sexual intercourse be extended beyond “penetration of the vagina by the penis of another person”.

UNDP Senior Human Rights Adviser in Jamaica, Birgit Gerstenberg, told a Parliamentary committee meeting at Gordon House this afternoon that the UN was recommending that other forms of penetration be considered such as penetration of the mouth, anal intercourse or penetration by non-sex organs and objects (except for medical purposes).

Gerstenberg told the committee that the UN’s definition is key for the definition of criminal types of gender-based and sexual violence.

“If sexual intercourse does not consider the possibility of other penetrative practices that may be used to inflict grave sexual violence to any person, it does not recognise the same nature of any sexual penetration and diminishes particularly humiliating or painful traumatic experience that victims may undergo,” she said.

The joint select committee, chaired by Justice Minister Delroy Chuck, is reviewing four sexual relations and violence Bills including the Sexual Offences Act.

Balford Henry