text: Malaysia: The Sessions Court declared that a man accused of two counts of statutory rape of a 14-year-old girl from Petra Jaya in the Malaysian part of Borneo in October 2015 would escape punishment because he claimed to have married his victim, but this was overruled by the High Court in Sabah and Sarawak in August 2016 after large-scale protests argued this would set a dangerous precedent for child rapists to escape punishment.
  Bulgaria: A ban on the wearing of face-covering Islamic clothing in public was adopted by the Bulgarian parliament.
  Latvia: A ban on the wearing of face-covering Islamic clothing in public was adopted by the Latvian parliament, despite such garments being rarely worn in Latvia.
  Ireland: Mellet v Ireland is a finding from the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 2016 that the Republic of Ireland's abortion laws violated human rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by banning abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality and by forcing her to travel to the United Kingdom for an abortion.
  Galdakao, Spain: Due to the widespread practice of topless sunbathing, the municipality of Galdakao decided to legalize female toplessness on their public pools (in March 2016).
  Brazil: On 29 November 2016, the Supreme Court in Brazil ruled in a non-binding decision that "abortion should not be a crime when performed in the first three months of pregnancy". This ruling was controversial, due to the fact that the Brazilian government had passed a bill earlier in 2016 which aimed to make Brazilian law on abortion even stricter.