India Debates Criminalization of Marital Rape
While marital rape is a crime in many Western countries, including the United States, in India, one of roughly three dozen countries where it is not, men’s rights groups say making martial rape a criminal offense will lead to the breakdown of the family.
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While marital rape is a crime in many Western countries, including the United States, Britain and Canada, in India, one of roughly three dozen countries where it is not, men’s rights group are arguing that making martial rape a criminal offense will lead to the breakdown of the family, reports the Washington Post. A high court in Delhi will soon decide whether to eliminate the marital rape exception from the country’s rape laws, which were reformed in the aftermath of a brutal gang rape and murder in 2012.
The petitions challenging the exemption say it is unconstitutional and violates the fundamental rights of women. Domestic violence offenses in India are governed by a different set of laws than sexual violence and rape and criminalize acts of physical or mental cruelty, including dowry-related harassment by a husband or his relatives. “The law has recognized that violence in marriage in wrong. Rape is a gross act of violence,” said Kirti Singh, legal adviser to All India Democratic Women’s Association, one of the petitioners. The groups claim that a new offense of marital rape will become a tool in the hands of women to file fake cases against men to extort money or blackmail them. One in three married women in India faced violence at the hands of their spouse, and more than 111,000 cases were filed under the domestic violence law in 2020, although the conviction rate under this section remains low.
