Criminalisation of Marital Rape
Source : The Hindu
GS II : Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation
What is discussed under Criminalisation of Marital Rape?
- About Criminalisation of Marital Rape
- Marital Rape Issue global practice
Why in News ?
The Supreme Court recently sought the Union government’s response to the pleas arising out of the Delhi high court’s split verdict on the criminalisation of marital rape.
Key Facts
- The high court’s decision was based on PILs that were brought by the NGOs RIT Foundation, All India Democratic Women’s Association,and a man and woman who wanted to abolish the exception to the Indian rape legislation that is given to husbands.
- The matter has been pending since 2018.
- A split decision was reached on May 11, with one judge favouring the repeal of the legal provision shielding husbands from prosecution for engaging in extramarital sex with their spouses while the other declined to declare it unlawful.
Under the exception given in section 375 of the IPC, sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his wife, the wife not being minor, is not rape.
- Petitioners before the high court had challenged the constitutionality of the marital rape exception under section 375 IPC (rape) on the ground that it discriminated against married women who are sexually assaulted by their husbands.
Criminalisation of Marital Rape
Why it is needed?
- Constitutional : Bodily Integrity is intrinsic to Article 21 and Article 14.
- Ensure that women remain safer from abusive spouses.
- Marriage should not be viewed as a license for a husband to forcibly rape.
What is the possible negative impact?
- It might turn become a simple method for stalking husbands through abuse of the legal system.
- Indian Law Commission and the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs after thoroughly examining the matter did not recommend the criminalization of marital rape.
- Implementational issues due to evidences.
Marital Rape Issue global practice
- Subsequently, in 2003 marital rape was outlawed by legislation in the UK.
- Australia (1981), Canada (1983), and South Africa (1993) have enacted laws that criminalise marital rape.
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