A men’s group that’s opposing the govt stand on marital rape

Men’s groups have generally been at the forefront of the legal struggle to not have marital rape recognised as a crime. In the Delhi High Court, where the issue is being presently adjudicated in the case of RIT Foundation and Others versus Union of India, these groups have filed applications and representations contending that criminalising marital rape would reduce men to hapless beings at the mercy of scheming and disgruntled wives, and spell doom for the institutions of both marriage and family.

Therefore, it has come as a refreshing surprise to see a Delhi-based men’s group, Forum to Engage Men (FEM) file an application in which it has actually listed grounds for criminalising marital rape and taken a stand opposite that of the Government, which has opposed criminalising rape in marriages.

The application begins by contending that in marriage, men have historically and traditionally assumed the privilege of having sex at their instance, without considering the consent and wishes of their wives. It contends that marriage is a union of equal partnership, where recognising the full legal personhood of the wife is essential for a marriage to flourish.

According to a report in the British Medical Journal, Lancet, as many as 27.5 million women in India have faced sexual violence and 10 per cent of all married women experience sexual violence from their husbands. According to the International Men and Gender Equality Study, 20 per cent men admitted to committing sexual violence against their female partners- thus showing how deeply pervasive the problem is.

Educational and sensitisation programmes conducted by FEM and its partners have shown that many men are wrongly socialised to believe that they can have sex with their wives without caring for the latter’s consent. Wives admitted that after undergoing the programmes, there was a marked change in their husbands’ sexual behavior – they had started caring about mutual consent for sexual intercourse.

There have also been reported cases where wives complained of sexual violence accompanied by high instances of physical violence as well. Thus marital rape spikes up the incidence of domestic violence too.

The fourth round of the National Family Health Survey 2015-16 shows that 28.8 per cent of all married women in the age group of 15-49 years have faced spousal violence — thus showing that a staggering 70 million of married women among India’s 1.3 billion population have been victims of domestic violence. This has globally been recognised as a human rights violation by the Convention Against All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) which India has ratified and which has formed the basis of many Supreme Court Judgments as well as the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 2013. It is significant to mention that the Committee which drafted the Amendment Act strongly recommended that marital rape be recognized as a crime.

The application states that “FEM believes that by setting aside the exception in Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, Section 376B and Section 198B of the CrPC and making marital rape a cognizable offence, the Court will be sending a message to the married men of India that coercive sex with their wives is a criminal act. This will set a new norm, and act as a deterrent. Such an order by this Court will have the potential to benefit tens of millions of women in India, who are otherwise at the risk of sexual violence and rape by their husbands and partners every day.”