Now globally 52 countries around the world have criminalized marital rape. Poland in 1932 was the first to have a law explicitly making it a criminal offence. And then Australia, under the impact of the second wave of feminism in the seventies, was the first common law country to pass reforms in 1976 that made rape in marriage a criminal offence.
In the two decades before that, several Scandinavian countries and countries in the Communist bloc passed laws criminalizing spousal rape including Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the former Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. The United Kingdom that inserted marital law exemption in the penal code of sub-continent brought the turning point for marital rape law in its common law system on 23rd October 1991 (which until then believed that wife rape was not an offence, since there was an implied consent present). On this day in a unanimous judgment, five Law Lords declared that a husband’s immunity from a charge of his wife’s rape formed no part of English Law. However, It is breathtaking to say that we still can’t recognize marital rape as a crime while Nepal repealed marital rape exemption on the ground of right to life and equal protection of law in 2007 and Pakistan in 2006 by legislating Protection of Women Act 2006 respectively, though the case reported in these countries are not even the tip of iceberg because of fear of retribution and stigma associated in such criminal offence. At least, it is hopeful that they are trying to alleviate the violence day by day, which is not possible in our country when the law is not amended.
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The rape laws in India are more or less the same as ours Based on the irrational logic that criminalizing marital rape `will destroy the institution of family, will attack its sanctity’ and `will be used as a weapon by women to torture the male members’, as section 375 of Indian Penal Code clearly stipulates that “Sexual intercourse by man with his own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not rape.” Although the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 does list sexual abuse as a form of domestic violence under which, women can get civil protection if they have been subjected to marital rape which is not enough as a punishment against marital rape occurred repeatedly over a prolonged period. In Europe, Marital rape was recognized in law in Austria in 1989; in Switzerland in 1991 (though not until 2003 did it become a state offence); in the Netherlands in 1992; Germany in 1997 and in France in 2006 just after passing the EU parliament’s Resolution on the violence against women in 1986. Besides, Belgium and Luxembourg also enacted new laws to explicitly make marital rape a criminal offence. But it is beyond imagination in this 21st century that there is no effective legal remedy against the stigma that fueled marital rape to protect the rape survivors because there is no Law even to recognize this heinous act which makes it a crime with no risk and punishment or incentives for the perpetrators. Until 1993, all the 50 states of the US have criminalized marital rape.
The US medical community treats millions of intimate partner rapes and physical assaults annually and estimated 4.8 million intimate partner rapes and physical assaults are perpetrated against women. They are monitoring and taking necessary actions against the perpetrators by the task force and providing both health services and legal remedies to the marital rape survivors. Since the 1980s, many common law countries have legislatively abolished the marital rape immunity.
These include South Africa, Ireland, Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Ghana, and Israel and recently South Korea has also criminalized marital rape to address the violence. Among the South East Asian nations, Malaysia is the one which legislatively abolished marital rape exemption to help all types of rape victim in 2007. It has One Stop Crisis Centers (OSCC) providing comprehensive care to women and children experiencing abuse located in A&E departments of urban public hospitals. Although in its neighboring country Singapore, there is a partial immunity for marital rape because it is not a criminal offence except when the wife is below 13 years of age or when any of the specific circumstances provided under section 375(4) of the Singapore Penal Code are satisfied. However, voice has been raised gradually after the case of Public Prosecutor v N.
As an archaic rule, it is suggested for complete abolishment of section 375 altogether. When most of the advanced countries around the world thrown the spouse rape away and criminalized it in early 20th century, In Bangladesh. there is neither political debate to criminalize marital rape as a crime nor to amend the immunity section existing in our laws in this country that are actually existing to preserve the idea of ignorance of the right of the women and patriarchic cultures seeking to protect the husband rapists by making the married women as chattel perceiving not as human beings holding own desires and feelings.RecommendationTo address the violence against women under the marriage covenant like marital rape, it needs a multiple number of factors that must be implemented. Thus the following recommendations are needed:Repealing the marital rape exemption altogether from section 375 of The penal code and amending section 376 of the penal code to severe the punishment and fine; recognizing marital rape as a crime.
Enacting new law titled Marriage “Women’s privacy and protection Act” which addresses the violence of marital rape in its full essence; criminalizing it and treating it as not less severe crime than stranger rape by all law enforcement personnel and courts, to illegalize marital rape and deem it as a crime with severe punishment with fine and compensation for the victims to protect them from re-victimization. Establishing comprehensive health care centers especially for the marital rape victims equipped to provide a comprehensive response, addressing both physical and mental consequences.Providing compulsory training programmes for police officers, judicial personnel, Health- care providers and gathering forensic evidence when needed to enable them to identify cases of rape in particular, of marital rape, and to enable them to advise and assist the victims more effectively and consistently.
Taking comprehensive steps to prevent marital rape in the first place including, by empowering women through changing their position in the society, specially married women.Moreover, mass Social awareness must be spread throughout the society against marital rape because If awareness can continue to bring the issue of marital rape to the forefront of conversation that converses that marital rape is no longer a stigma but brutal crime against the privacy and self-dignity of the women, then It can help to make changes in society in relation to the issue. Besides, it is necessary to bring changes in the attitude towards married women in our society.ConclusionOur women in society have been indoctrinated with the notion and belief that they should try to be inherently affirmative against the will of dominating male and remain silent against the physical and mental traumas gravely Caused by their husband.
In fact, their silence is the delineation of their worst and vulnerable condition in the society.To live a life all the people need freedom regardless of anything. Women need freedom so that they can stand up to raise their voice against the violence they are bearing for years after years, The lawmakers should take drastic action to repeal the marital exemption away from the penal code and penalize it as a severe crime not even less serious as of rape of strangers so that the victims can get the ground to raise their voice against forced marital rape and get access to the justice through a legal process. However, it is not possible to claim that repealing marital rape exemption from penal code and making legislation against it would totally remove marital rape from the society. But there are countless women who are vulnerable to violence of forced marital rape every day, and they can’t express their victimization to anybody because of the deep stigma attached in it and eventually fails to get access to remedies which are still more frustratingly not available for them in our existing legislations.
