MARITAL RAPES
Today's topic of discussion is nothing but, marital rapes. To put it plainly, rape is the most brutal violence, one can do to a woman. According to the statistics, published by Dailyhunt in 2013, "With an estimated of 500,000 rape cases every year, ... [South Africa] has one of the highest rate of Rape Crimes in the world. It is estimated that more than 40% of South African women will be raped in their lifetime." (1) In the case of India, "The number of reported rapes in India, a country of over 1.2 billion people, has gone up to 33,707 in 2013 ... In India, a woman is being raped after every 20 minutes. ... 93 women are being raped in the country every day." (1) All these show the case of women, who got rapped by strangers or by ones who were less known to the victims. Then, what about the marital rapes, happened so far and happening at present. Until a while, no one was even bothered of this beastly crimes. Thus they went on and on and on. Can't help, but say, it's the truth.
Marital rape means the unnecessary sexual acts committed by husband upon his wife without her consent. An article titled, "Data On Sexual Violence In Marriages Shows Why India Should Progress Towards Criminalising Marital Rape", it is stated, "According to the UN Women's 2011 report, out of 179 countries ... 52 had amended their legislation to explicitly make marital rape a criminal offence. India is one such country where marital rape is yet to be even recognized ... Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which defines rape, makes an exception for marital rape by stating, "Sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape."" (2) The article continues, "At an all India level, 9 out of every 100 men, agree to the fact that a husband has the right to use force and have sex with his wife even if she doesn't want to." (2) To brief, what does it show ? ... The reality. ... Yes, the face of truth. ... But I pray, not let that fact get mugged up in the shabby skin-torn files, only to get dusty, just as other files got.
In this situation, what we have to do is, we have to take immediate action against these crimes and check all sorts of violence, both sexual and asexual, upon our daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, aunt, niece, and even our friend. Remember, ... if we shut our eyes towards these crimes, one day we too may fall as victims of such crimes. So, think. ... Sorry, we barely have time to think. Thus, we should start working to eliminate the crime even from the corners of the world of mankind.
Another aspect of this case is, though at one side, there is a category of people, like us, who continuously urges the world not to commit such crimes, in the other side, there are people, both educated and uneducated, who forcefully push their own children to married lives, at very young age. As the article, "India Has the Highest Number of Child Brides in the World: How Do We Deal With It", says, "Child marriage remains a social evil that India has seemingly had a hard time eradicating. ... Despite all the ... conversation about protecting our young girls ... certain influential politicians and lawmakers in Madhya Pradesh continue to condone and support such the pernicious practice of child marriage. According to a recent report by the Dainik Bhaskar Post, hundreds of young girls were married off across mass wedding ceremonies in the Rajgarh district of Madhya Pradesh, on the occasion of Akshay Tritiya ... What was even more shocking was the presence of leaders from both the ruling and opposition parties at these mass wedding ceremonies. These leaders reportedly even blessed the couples. The district administration estimates that nearly 1000 minor couples were married off on [that single day]." (3)
By deviating from the crisis of 'child marriage', if we move to the case of matured women, it is not better enough, and more pathetic, i would say. In a country named Kyrgyzstan, in a native community, there is a custom of 'bride kidnapping'. In the details section of a YouTube video titled, "Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan", it is mentioned, "In rural Kyrgyzstan men still marry their women the old-fashioned way: by abducting them off the street and forcing them to be their wife." (4) According to the video, due to that weird custom of bride kidnapping, lots of young women, soon after their forced marriages, committed suicide.
In short, all these data show that marriage has become a sort of curse in the life of every woman. At this time, one must remember, whatever action, if it is forcefully done upon someone without the person's consent, then it is a crime. This is a fact, known to all. But no one is ready to take a chance to keep things in order. Then what to do??
There are people who speak and write about the want of stopping all those crimes, but they themselves lag behind when they deal their own family matters. For instance, we all say it is one's freedom to choose whether to marry and a lead a responsible family life or to remain as singleton and lead a carefree life. But when this perspective moves to the wing of family, or society at large, the so-called morality holders or keepers insist the poor girls to marry at a certain age even though the girls really don't want. ... Here, where is the morality and where is the freedom?? In a comment written beneath a YouTube video titled, "Fighting forced marriages and honour based abuse | Jasvinder Sanghera | TEDxGöteborg", Afifa Iran notes,
"I'm 26 and my parents somehow just want me to be married off. They think I'll not survive without a man. I am a dentist currently working to take an exam that will lead to specialization. I am not ready or interested in marriage. And i can honestly relate to her. My dad does pressure me but he doesn't throw a tantrum. My mom loses her calm over my marriage. Worst part is when all these families come in to 'see' you to get you into an arranged marriage. This is quite screwed up. Mostly female peers question me and pressure me into settling down. I am not ready for marriage and i don't want it anytime soon. But my parents ignore it like it's a pointless thing. They say "oh she'll be fine once married". Well hello no i won't be! If I'm not ready and you marry me off even to the best guy in the whole wide world, i won't be able to appreciate him and just walk out of it! I wish our mothers could break free of their own fears!" (5)
As a girl or a woman, I felt empathy towards the girl, who posted the comment. Her words stand for the voice of the entire womenfolk. Her words give voice to the voiceless.
To conclude, if we keep on voicing our rights and establishing our status of being human rather than a piece of flesh to chew upon, one day the graph of the above statistics falls down to the level of zero. And I strongly believe, that day is not so far. The count down started. ... (rape, violence, abuse, discrimination, injustice, ......... 3, 2, 1, 0 ......)
- https://m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/english/east+coast+daily+eng-epaper-eeastco/here+s+the+list+of+countries+with+highest+rape+crime+rate+in+the+world-newsid-90811949
- https://www.huffingtonpost.in/kumar-rajesh/latest-data-on-sexual-violence-in-marriages-shows-why-india-should-progress-towards-criminalising-marital-rape_a_23367102/
- https://www.thebetterindia.com/138496/india-child-brides-marriage-law-posco/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKAusMNTNnk
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Xh5MXA7yY&list=WL&index=178&t=294s
Penned by,
Ms. Greshma Clement
(I apologize, if anyone gets hurt due to this write-up.)
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