Marital Rape Laws-Things are not as simple as people want them to be!

Women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi had said last week that the concept of marital rape cannot be "suitably applied in the Indian context" due to factors like poverty, illiteracy and religious beliefs.

"It is considered that the concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context due to various factors like level of education/illiteracy, poverty, myriad social customs and values, religious beliefs, mindset of the society to treat the marriage as a sacrament, etc," Gandhi had said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Section 375, the provision of rape in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), has this as its exception clause- "Sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not rape."

Credit: Radhika

In Pakistan:

The Women's Protection Bill, passed on 15 November 2006, moved the prosecution of rape cases from the Hudood Ordinance to Pakistan's secular penal code. The bill enabled judges to try rape cases in criminal court instead of Islamic court. These moves ended the need for multiple male witnesses to a rape in order to prosecute. It eliminated the sentence of death for consensual pre-marital sex, reducing the maximum penalty to five years imprisonment and a fine. However, marital rape remains excluded from being prosecuted as rape. It also requires that formal charges be brought in cases of an accusation of extramarital sex in order to jail the accused.

The fact is that till 1991 even in UK- Marital Rape wasn't even considered as an offence.

Suraj's dialogue yesterday "Miyaan Biwi ke beech mein Police kia karegi" points to a grave reality of our sub-continent. Things are not simple as people want them to be. Eye Opener and Sad reality!