M.C. v. BULGARIA JUDGMENT 17 ... all jurisdictions surveyed by the Trial Chamber require an element of force, coercion, threat, or acting without the consent of the victim: force is given a broad interpretation and includes rendering the victim helpless.” 103. The Trial Chamber defined rape as: “sexual penetration ... by coercion or force or threat of force against the victim or a third person.” 104. Noting that the terms “coercion”, “force”, or “threat of force” from the Furundžija definition were not intended to be interpreted narrowly, the Trial Chamber in another case (Prosecutor v. Kunarac, Kovač and Vuković, case no. IT-96-23, judgment of 22 February 2001) observed: “In stating that the relevant act of sexual penetration will constitute rape only if accompanied by coercion or force or threat of force against the victim or a third person, the Furundžija definition does not refer to other factors which would render an act of sexual penetration non-consensual or non-voluntary on the part of the victim, which ... as discussed below, is in the opinion of this Trial Chamber the accurate scope of this aspect of the definition in international law. ... the basic underlying principle common to [the national legal systems surveyed is] that sexual penetration will constitute rape if it is not truly voluntary or consensual on the part of the victim ... [F]orce, threat of force or coercion ... are certainly the relevant considerations in many legal systems but the full range of [the relevant] provisions ... suggest that the true common denominator which unifies the various systems may be a wider or more basic principle of penalising violations of sexual autonomy. ” 105. In Kunarac, Kovač and Vuković, a Muslim girl in an occupied area was taken by armed soldiers to a building which served as military headquarters. After being raped by two soldiers there, she was brought to a room where she herself initiated sexual contact with the accused Mr Kunarac, the commanding officer. The Trial Chamber noted that the victim had been told by soldiers that she should satisfy their commander sexually or risk her life. The victim therefore “did not freely consent to any sexual intercourse with Kunarac [as she] was in captivity and in fear for her life”. The Trial Chamber also rejected Kunarac's defence that he was not aware of the fact that the victim had only initiated sexual intercourse with him because she feared for her life. The Chamber found that, even if Kunarac had not heard the threats made by other soldiers, he could not have been “confused” by the behaviour of the victim, given the general context of the existing war-time situation and the specifically delicate situation of the Muslim girls in the region. 106. In the context of the above facts, the Trial Chamber made the following observations on the elements of rape under international law: “The basic principle which is truly common to [the reviewed] legal systems is that serious violations of sexual autonomy are to be penalised. Sexual autonomy is violated wherever the person subjected to the act has not freely agreed to it or is otherwise not a voluntary participant.