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India is one of a few dozen countries that do not recognize marital rape
Warning: this report contains disturbing details
The decision of an Indian court according to which a “forced nature” sex with his wife is not an offense has led to enormous outrage and aroused renewed calls for better protections for married women.
The controversial order has also brought back to light the question of marital rape in a country which has stubbornly refused to criminalize it.
Earlier this week, a high court judge in the Indian central state of Chhattisgarh released a 40 -year -old man who was sentenced by a trial of first instance in 2019 of rape and unnatural relations with his wife, Died a few hours after the alleged assault.
The lower court also recognized the guilty man of “guilty homicide who did not rush to the murder”. He was sentenced to “a rigorous prison sentence for 10 years” on each charges, with all the sentences to execute simultaneously.
But Monday, the high court judge, Narendra Kumar Vyas, acquitted the man of all the accusations, claiming that, since India did not recognize marital rape, the husband could not be considered as guilty of sexual relations non -consensual or any non -consensual non -natural sexual act.
The judgment was greeted by anger because activists, lawyers and activists renew their calls to criminalize matrimonial rape in India.
“Looking at this man moving away is unacceptable. This judgment can be legally correct, but he is ethical and morally odious,” said lawyer and activist for gender rights, Sukriti Chauhan.
“An order that absolves a man of such a crime, to say that it is not a crime, is the darkest hour of our legal system,” she told the BBC.
“It shaken us in the heart. It must change and change quickly.”
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Violence against women is endemic in India
Priyanka Shukla, lawyer at Chhattisgarh, said a judgment like this “sends the message only because you are the husband, you have rights. And you can do everything, you can even get out with the murder”.
She added that this is not the first time that a court has made such a judgment, and there is always anger.
“This time, indignation is more because it is so horrible and the woman has died.”
Documents make a dark reading.
According to the accusation, the incident took place on the night of December 11, 2017, when the husband, who worked as a driver, “committed unnatural sexual relations with the victim against his will … causing him a lot of pain” .
After her departure for work, she asked for help from her sister and another parent, who took her to the hospital where she died a few hours later.
In her declaration to the police and her dying statement to a magistrate, the woman said that she had fallen ill “due to energetic sex by her husband”.
A dying declaration supports weight before the courts and that legal experts claim that it is generally sufficient for the conviction, unless you are contradicted by other elements of evidence.
While condemning the man in 2019, the court of first instance had strongly supported his dying declaration and the post mortem report, which indicated that “the cause of death was peritonitis and rectal perforation” – simply serious injuries to his abdomen and his rectum.
Judge Vyas, however, saw things differently – he questioned the “sacred character” of the dying declaration, noted that certain witnesses had retracted their declarations and, above all, said that marital rape was not An offense in India.
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A number of petitions have been deposited in recent years to criminalize marital rape
The condemnation of the lower court was “a rarest affair,” said Shukla, “probably because the woman died”.
“But what is shocking in the prescription of the High Court is that there is not even a sympathetic comment of the judge.”
Given the nature of the attack, the high court order was a shock for many, which believe that the judge should not have rejected the case also lightly.
India is part of more than 30 countries – with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia – where marital rape is not a criminal offense.
A number of petitions have been deposited in recent years, seeking to eliminate article 375 of the Indian Criminal Code, which has existed since 1860.
The British law of the colonial era mentions several “exemptions” – or situations in which sex is not rape – and one of them is “by a man with his own wife” if she has No less than 15 years.
Great Britain prohibited marital rape in 1991, but India, which recently rewritten its penal code, has retained regressive law in its new law book.
The idea is rooted in belief that sex consent is “implicit” in marriage and that a woman cannot retract later. Activists say that such an argument is untenable these days, and this forced sex is rape, no matter who does it.
But in a country where marriage and family are considered sacro-sacrosing, the question has polarized opinions and there is strong resistance to the idea of criminalizing marital rape.
The Indian government, religious leaders and human rights activists have firmly opposed this decision.
In October of last year, the government told the Supreme Court that the criminalization of marital rape would be “excessively severe”. The Federal Interior Ministry said that “could lead to serious troubles in the marriage institution”.
Authorities also insist that there are enough laws to protect married women from sexual violence. But activists say that India cannot hide behind archaic laws to refuse women the bodily agency.
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“Many people say that the Constitution cannot enter your room,” said Chauhan.
“But does that not grant women-like all citizens-the fundamental rights of security and security? In what type of redundant country do we live in which we remain silent when a woman has to face At this level of violence? ” she asked.
Violence within marriage is endemic in India.
According to a recent government survey, 32% of married women are faced with physical, sexual or emotional violence by their husband and 82% suffered sexual violence by their husband.
And even that does not give the real scale of the problem, said Shukla, because the majority of women do not report violence, in particular sexual violence, by shame.
“According to my experience, women do not trust when they complain, everyone says that it must be false. The only time these cases are taken seriously is when a woman dies or the Aggression is particularly horrible, “said the lawyer.
Ms. Chauhan thinks that nothing will change until the law does not change.
“We must criminalize matrimonial rape. The woman who does not receive justice after a so horrible incident deserves a national campaign, which was not born from anger but which is serious (and) well thought.”
She added that the government and the militants of men are trying to project it as a “debate on the man against the woman”.
“But the request for criminalization of marital rape is not against men, but for the security and well-being of women. Isn’t it important to ensure the security of women?”
