Human rights, sexual orientation and the generation of childhoods: analysing the partial decriminalisation of 'unnatural offences' in India

Waites, M. (2011) Human rights, sexual orientation and the generation of childhoods: analysing the partial decriminalisation of 'unnatural offences' in India. In: Sociology and Human Rights: New Engagements. Routledge: Abingdon, UK, pp. 161-183. ISBN 9780415617970

Abstract

What is the relationship between global struggles over ‘sexual orientation’ and human rights, and sociological, legal and ‘queer’ understandings of sexuality and childhood? On 2 July 2009, the struggle in India to end the criminalisation of adult same-sex sexual behaviour by Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a legacy of the British Empire, achieved a landmark victory. The Delhi High Court ruled in favour of a petition by the Naz Foundation, supported by the Voices Against 377 coalition, to decriminalise oral and anal sex in private for adults. The analysis presented here argues that not only the chief justice who made the ruling, but also many campaigners in favour of the petition, strategically invoked a definition of childhood which is colonial in origin. This was problematically articulated in relation to sexual acts other than heteronormative intercourse, together with Indian constitutional rights, international human rights and ‘children’s rights’ which facilitate ‘protection’ from unlawful sexual activity by adults – thus proscribing many young people’s sexual lives.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Keywords: sexual orientation, queer, children, India, section 377, rights
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Waites, Dr Matthew
• Authors: Waites, M.
• Subjects: H Social Sciences > HM Sociology; J Political Science > JX International law
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences
• Publisher: Routledge
• ISBN: 9780415617970