An Indian judge has dismissed a woman\u2019s complaint that her husband committed \u201cunnatural sex,\u201d because under Indian law it\u2019s not illegal for a husband to force his wife to engage in sexual acts. <\/p>\n
The ruling, made in the Madhya Pradesh High Court last week, shines a light on a legal loophole in India that doesn\u2019t criminalize marital rape by a husband against his wife, if she\u2019s over age 18. <\/p>\n
Campaigners have been trying to change the law for years, but they say they\u2019re up against\u00a0conservatives who argue that state interference could destroy the tradition of marriage\u00a0in India. <\/p>\n
A challenge to the law has been winding its way through the country\u2019s courtrooms, with the Delhi High Court delivering a split verdict on the issue in 2022, prompting lawyers to file an appeal in the country\u2019s Supreme Court that is still waiting to be heard. <\/p>\n
According to\u00a0the Madhya Pradesh High Court\u00a0order, the woman told police her husband came to her house in 2019, soon after they were married, and committed \u201cunnatural sex,\u201d under Section 377 of India\u2019s penal code. <\/p>\n
The offense includes\u00a0non-consensual\u00a0\u201ccarnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal,\u201d and was historically used to prosecute same sex couples who engaged in\u00a0consensual\u00a0sex, before the Supreme Court decriminalized homosexuality in 2018 <\/p>\n
According to court documents, the woman alleged the act happened \u201con multiple occasions,\u201d and that her husband had threatened to divorce her if she told anyone about it. She finally came forward after telling her mother, who encouraged her to file a complaint in 2022, the court heard. <\/p>\n
The husband challenged his wife\u2019s complaint in court, with his lawyer claiming that any \u201cunnatural sex\u201d between the couple was not criminal as they are married. <\/p>\n
Delivering his judgement, Justice Gurpal Singh Ahluwalia pointed to India\u2019s marital rape exemption, which does not make it a crime for a man to force sex on his wife, a relic of British rule more than 70 years after independence. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen rape includes insertion of penis in the mouth, urethra or anus of a woman and if that act is committed with his wife, not below the age of fifteen years, then consent of the wife becomes immaterial \u2026 Marital rape has not been recognized so far,\u201d the judge said. <\/p>\n
India\u2019s Supreme Court increased marital consent from the age of 15 to 18 in a landmark judgement in 2017. <\/p>\n
The woman also accused her in-laws of mental and physical harassment \u201con account of nonfulfilment of demand of dowry,\u201d the court order said. A trial is pending. <\/p>\n
Ahluwalia\u2019s remarks have once again raised questions over India\u2019s treatment of women, who continue to face the threat of violence and discrimination in the deeply patriarchal society. <\/p>\n
The world\u2019s largest democracy of 1.4 billion has made significant strides in enacting laws to better safeguard women, but lawyers and campaigners say its reluctance to criminalize marital rape leaves women without adequate protection. <\/p>\n
According to the 2019-2021 National Family Health Survey by the Government of India, 17.6% of more than 100,000 women ages 15-49 surveyed said they were unable to say no to their husband if they didn\u2019t want sex, while 11% thought husbands were justified in hitting or beating his wife if she refused. <\/p>\n
Women alleging rape in India have some avenues of potential legal action against their husbands. <\/p>\n
For example, they can seek a restraining order under civil law or charges under Section 354 of India\u2019s Penal Code, which covers sexual assault short of rape, and Section 498A, which covers domestic violence. <\/p>\n
Many married women are also ignored when they try to file a police complaint, a 2022 study showed. <\/p>\n
The study examined records from three Mumbai public hospitals from 2008 to 2017 and found that of 1,664 rape survivors, no rape cases were filed by police. At least 18 of those women reported marital rape to the police, including 10 women who alleged rape by a former partner or husband. <\/p>\n
Four women were explicitly told by police that they could not do anything as marital rape was not a crime, the report said. <\/p>\n\n
An Indian judge has dismissed a woman\u2019s complaint that her husband committed \u201cunnatural sex,\u201d because under Indian law it\u2019s not illegal for a husband to force his wife to engage in sexual acts. The ruling, made in the Madhya Pradesh High Court last week, shines a light on a legal loophole in India that doesn\u2019t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}