India will go as a judge releases the man accused of raping the wife who later died

WARNING: This report contains some disturbing details

The ruling of an Indian court that the “unnatural sex” of a man with his wife is not a crime has led to great outrage and caused renewed calls for better protections for married women.

The controversial order has also highlighted the problem of marriage violation in a country that has stubbornly refused to criminalize it.

Earlier this week, a judge of the Superior Court in the central state of Chhattisgarh released a 40 -year – alleged assault.

The lower court had also found the guilty man of “guilty homicide that does not equals murder.” He was sentenced to “rigorous imprisonment for 10 years” in each position, with all the sentences to execute simultaneously.

But on Monday, the judge of the Superior Court, Narendra Kumar Vyas, acquitted the man of all charges, saying that, since India did not recognize the marriage violation, the husband could not be considered guilty of unseen sex or any unnatural sexual act It is not natural.

The sentence has been found with anger, since activists, lawyers and activists renew their calls to criminalize marriage violation in India.

“Seeing this man getting away is unacceptable. This judgment can be legally correct, but it is ethical and morally hated,” said Gender Rights Lawyer Sukriti Chauhan.

“An order that acquits a man of such crime, to say that it is not a crime, it is the darkest time in our legal system,” he told the BBC.

“It has shaken us to the center. This must change and change quickly.”

Priyanka Shukla, a Chhattisgarh lawyer, said a trial like this “sends the message that because you are the husband, you have rights. And you can do anything, you can even get yours.”

He added that this is not the first time that a court has given such trial, and there is always anger.

“This time, the outrage is more because it is so horrible and the woman died.”

Court documents make a gloomy reading.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the incident took place on the night of December 11, 2017, when the husband, who worked as a driver, “committed antinatural sex with the victim against his will … causing him a lot of pain.”

After he went to work, she sought the help of her sister and another relative, who took her to the hospital where she died a few hours later.

In her statement to the police and her dying statement to a magistrate, the woman said she got sick “due to her husband’s sexual contacts.”

A dying statement has weight in the courts and legal experts says that it is generally sufficient for the conviction, unless other evidence is contradicted.

While convincing man in 2019, the Court of First Instance had been based largely on his dying statement and the post Mortem report, which declared “the cause of death was peritonitis and rectal drilling”, simply serious injuries to his abdomen and straight.

However, Judge Vyas saw things differently: he questioned the “holiness” of the dying statement, said that some of the witnesses had retired their statements and, most importantly, said that marriage rape was not a crime in the India.

The condemnation of the lower court was “a weird case,” said Shukla, “probably because the woman died.”

“But the shocking thing about the order of the Superior Court is that there is not even a comprehensive comment of the judge.”

Taking into account the nature of the assault, the order of the Superior Court has been a shock for many, who believe that the judge should not have dismissed the case so lightly.

India is among more than 30 countries, together with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, where marriage violation is not a criminal crime.

Several requests have been presented in recent years that seek to demolish section 375 of the Indian Criminal Code, which has existed since 1860.

The British law of the colonial era mentions several “exemptions”, or situations in which sex is not violation, and one of them is “for a man with his own wife” if he is not less than 15 years old.

Great Britain prohibited marital violation in 1991, but India, which recently rewrote its Criminal Code, retained the regressive law in its new Book of Statutes.

The idea is based on the belief that consent for sex is “implicit” in marriage and that a wife cannot retract later. Activists say that such an argument is unsustainable today, and that forced sex is a violation, regardless of who does.

But in a country where marriage and family are considered sacrosanct, the problem has polarized opinions and there is a strong resistance to the idea of ​​criminalizing marriage violation.

The Indian government, religious leaders and the activists of the rights of men have strongly opposed the measure.

In October last year, the government told the Supreme Court that the criminalization of marriage violation would be “excessively hard.” The Federal Interior Ministry said that “it can lead to serious disturbances in the institution of marriage.”

The authorities also insist that there are enough laws to protect married women against sexual violence. But activists say that India cannot hide behind archaic laws to deny women’s body agency.

“Many people say the Constitution cannot enter their room,” said Chauhan.

“But does not grant women, like all citizens, fundamental rights to security and security? What kind of redundant country do we live in which we are silent when a woman has to face this level of violence?” She asks.

Violence within marriage is rampant in India.

According A recent government survey32% of married women face physical, sexual or emotional violence on their husbands and 82% have experienced sexual violence by their husbands.

And even that does not set the true scale of the problem, Shukla said, because most women do not denounce violence, especially sexual violence, as shame.

“In my experience, women do not trust when they complain, everyone says it must be false. The only time these cases are taken seriously is when a woman dies or the assault is particularly horrible,” said the lawyer.

Mrs. Chauhan believes that nothing will change until the law changes.

“We need to criminalize marriage violation. The wife who does not receive justice after such a horrible incident deserves a campaign at the national level, which is not born of anger but is serious (and) well thought out.”

He added that the government and men’s activists try to project it as a “debate of women against women.”

“But the demand to criminalize marriage violation is not against men, but for the safety and well -being of women. Is it not important to guarantee the safety of women?”