This study is a single case study to investigate the connection between women's fear of sexual violence, human rights, and the state's responsibility to protect women from the fear of sexual violence. The thesis accomplishes this by combining existing research on sexual violence and fear of sexual violence, as well as its relationship to human rights, with a case study based on the Haga Man, a serial rapist in Sweden. The Social Contract Theory was utilized as a theoretical framework to assess the government's responsibility to its citizens. Article 5 of the ECHR is used in this study to argue for the need for state protection. The findings indicate that Sweden as a state has a responsibility to protect women from the threat of sexual violence. This thesis adds to previous research pointing to the necessity to consider sexual assault and the fear of sexual violence as a human rights concern.

This study is based on the statistical finding that every tenth women in Sweden refrains to go outside alone in their own residential area when it is dark because they are afraid (BRÅ 2015:88) and strives to discuss this problem further. The purpose of this study is to argue that there is a need to address women’s fear of sexual violence as a human rights concern in Sweden. Women’s ability to enjoy their human rights is restricted by their fear and the normalization of women’s fear contributes to this problem. Furthermore, Martha Nussbaum’s capability approach and her theoretical understanding of emotions enable an understanding of how the concept of bodily integrity is affected by women’s fear. Women’s fear of sexual violence can be understood as a problem of social inequality that is affected by the underlying structures of gender inequality. Therefore, it is essential to identify the nature of the attitudes that tend to undermine women and result in violence against women. The fear of sexual violence is dependent on the occurrence of violence against women, which is a human rights violation. However, the fear of sexual violence is not a human rights violation yet it should be understood as a human rights concern.