{"id":49337,"date":"2019-07-11T14:06:38","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T08:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogadmin.forumias.com\/?p=49337"},"modified":"2019-07-11T14:06:38","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T08:36:38","slug":"answered-while-most-of-the-developed-world-has-penalised-marital-rape-surprisingly-there-is-no-law-to-protect-married-women-against-marital-rape-in-india-critically-analyse-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/answered-while-most-of-the-developed-world-has-penalised-marital-rape-surprisingly-there-is-no-law-to-protect-married-women-against-marital-rape-in-india-critically-analyse-the\/","title":{"rendered":"[Answered] \u201cWhile most of the developed world has penalised marital rape, surprisingly, there is no law to protect married women against marital rape in India\u201d. Critically analyse the need of law against marital rape in India. Discuss various challenges while legislating such a law."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Demand of the question<\/strong>
Introduction. <\/strong>Contextual Introduction.
Body. <\/strong>Write about issue of marital rape in India through data. Discuss various challenges in enacting marital rape law.
Conclusion. <\/strong>Way forward. <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n

According to the UN Women’s 2011 report, out of 179 countries for which data was available, 52 had amended their legislation to explicitly make marital rape a criminal offence. India is one such country where marital rape is yet to be even recognised, least criminalised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marital\nrapes in India:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. In a survey conducted by International Centre\nfor Research on Women <\/strong>(2011) nearly 20% of Indian men reported at least\nonce having carried out sexual violence against a female partner. <\/li>
  2. In another study by National Health and Family\nSurvey (NFHS-4)<\/strong> for the year 2015-16, 5.6% women have been reported as\nvictims under the category of \u201cphysically forced her to have sexual intercourse\nwith him even when she did not want to\u201d.<\/li>
  3. In August 2017, the Centre, in an affidavit filed\nin response to pleas seeking to criminalise marital rape in the Delhi High\ncourt, stated that marital rape cannot be made a criminal offence as it could\nbecome a phenomenon which may destabilise the institution of marriage and an\neasy tool for harassing husbands.<\/li>
  4. In the aftermath of the Jyoti Singh gangrape in\n2012, Justice Verma Committee <\/strong>constituted with an objective to\nstrengthen the anti-rape laws in the country. strongly recommended that the\nexception for marital rape be removed. The Committee also highlighted the\nrecommendations made by the CEDAW Committee in respect of India in 2007 which\nasked for \u201cwidening the definition of rape to reflect the realities of sexual\nabuse experienced by women and to remove the exception of marital rape from the\ndefinition of rape\u201d.<\/li>
  5. The recent judgment by the Gujarat high court in Nimeshbhai\nBharatbhai Desai vs State of Gujarat (2017)<\/strong> elaborately dealt with the\nissue of marital rape, and stated that, \u201cmaking wife rape illegal or an offence\nwill remove the destructive attitudes that promote the marital rape\u201d; however,\ndue to non-recognition of marital rape as a crime under the Indian legal\nframework, the court held that the husband is liable only for outraging her\nmodesty and unnatural sex. <\/li>
  6. Similarly, the apex court in Independent Thought\nvs Union of India (2017) <\/strong>has criminalised sexual intercourse with a minor\nwife aged between 15 and 18 years, but has refrained from making any\nobservation regarding the marital rape of a woman who is above 18 years of age.<\/li>
  7. Marital rape is a common but under-reported crime.\nA study conducted by the Joint Women Programme<\/strong>, an NGO, found that one\nout of seven married women had been raped by their husband at least once.20\nThey frequently do not report these rapes because the law does not support\nthem.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Issues and Challenges wrt marital rape law in\nIndia:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. Difficult to prove<\/strong>– It will be very difficult to provide evidence of\nmarital law and prove the crime. An evidence need to be solid to prove any\ncrime. In case of marital rape, whole family will support his son, and it will\nbe tough for women to prove the crime.<\/li>
    2. Threat to life<\/strong>– It will further increase threat to woman\u2019s life\nby her husband and her in laws. Any attempt to go against them may lead to\nfurther atrocities and an attempt on her life.<\/li>
    3. High illiteracy rate<\/strong>– Country where 26% of total population, and 35% of\nwomen population are illiterate, such a law need enormous efforts. Many woman\nwill not be able understand the law. Especially woman of lower strata where\nmarital rape is more prevalent and is under reported, impact of such law would\nbe minimal and need extra efforts for implementation.<\/li>
    4. Poverty<\/strong>– India where millions of people are living under\npoverty, such law may not be effective as woman may not be able to use\neffective means to use law due to poverty. <\/li>
    5. Extreme religious beliefs and the very \u2018sanctity\u2019\nof marriage<\/strong>– Many\nwoman still believes marriage as sacrosanct and husband as \u2018pati parmeshvar\u2019. They\nwould like to suffer than to break marriage. Thus sensitising them fir their\nrights and for such law will not be easy.<\/li>
    6. Increase burden on judiciary<\/strong>– Due to the near impossibility of proving marital\nrape, and false cases, its criminalisation would only serve as an increased\nburden to the already overburdened legal system. <\/li>
    7. False cases<\/strong>– Dissatisfied, angry, vengeful wives might charge\ntheir innocent husbands with the offence of marital rape. Further it will be\ndifficult for husbands to prove his innocence.<\/li>
    8. Increase in divorces<\/strong>– Marital rape laws would destroy many marriages by\npreventing any possible reconciliation. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      The mere fact that marital rape would be very\ndifficult to prove is no reason for not recognising it as a crime. It may be\nshowed that criminalisation of marital rape, serves to recognize rape in\nmarriage as a criminal offence and would have a deterrent effect <\/strong>on\nprospective rapist husbands. Enacting such a law need proper debates and\ndiscussion. Also such law should be clear in objectives and definitions related\nto marital rape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Demand of the question Introduction. Contextual Introduction. Body. Write about issue of marital rape in India through data. Discuss various challenges in enacting marital rape law. Conclusion. Way forward. According to the UN Women’s 2011 report, out of 179 countries for which data was available, 52 had amended their legislation to explicitly make marital rape… Continue reading [Answered] \u201cWhile most of the developed world has penalised marital rape, surprisingly, there is no law to protect married women against marital rape in India\u201d. Critically analyse the need of law against marital rape in India. Discuss various challenges while legislating such a law.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":49132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Mains-Marathon-%40.png?fit=700%2C373&ssl=1","views":{"total":262,"cached_at":1612297183},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}