India opposes tougher penalties for marital rape India’s government has asked the country’s crest court not to toughen criminal penalties against marital rape during an ongoing case brought by campaigners seeking to outlaw it.
The penal code introduced in the 19th century during British colonial rule of India explicitly states that “sexual acts by a man with his own wife… is not rape”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government enacted an overhauled code in July which retains that clause, despite the decade-long court contest by activists seeking to make marital rape illegal.
India’s interior ministry filed an affidavit to the Supreme Court on Thursday revealing that while marital rape should result in “penal consequences”, the legal scheme should treat it more leniently than rape committed outside of marriage.
“A husband certainly does not have any intrinsic right to encroach the permit of his wife,” the affidavit said, according to The Indian Express newspaper.
“However, attracting the crime in the nature of ‘rape’ as recognised in India to the institution of marriage can be arguably considered to be excessively harsh.”
India’s current penal code mandates a minimum 10-year sentence for those convicted of rape.
The government’s statement stated that marital rape was adequately addressed in existing laws, including a 2005 law protecting women from domestic violence.
Category: World-News
Tag: India opposes tougher penalties for marital rape
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Published 10/4/2024