The Indian women campaigning to criminalise marital rape
Raped by her husband on her wedding night aged 17, Divya described her repeated suffering an all-too-common account in India, permitted by a terrifying colonial-era legal loophole.
"I told him I have never had sex, and asked him if we can take it slowly and try to understand it. He said no, the first night is very important for us men." 19-year-old Divya said.
"I told him I have never had sex, and asked him if we can take it slowly and try to understand it. He said no, the first night is very important for us men." 19-year-old Divya said.
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00:00I have never had sex before, so can we try to understand it little by little, and slowly
00:20we can start, so he said no, this first night is very important for us men.
00:40He never said to me, if you don't want it, I won't do it, it has never happened to me.
01:00He never said to me, if you don't want it, I won't do it, it has never happened to me.
01:30We have in our country, a marital rape exception, now this means that while anybody else who
01:55is not married to the person they are raping, can be prosecuted for anal rape, can be prosecuted
02:03for helping somebody else rape the person, or the common garden penile vaginal rape,
02:13a person who is married to his victim, cannot be prosecuted, now this is something that
02:21that was true also of England, it was true of the United States, it was true of Nepal,
02:29it was true of Pakistan, it was true of the Philippines, and all of these have been struck
02:35down, starting from approximately 1991, it came of course from colonialism, from a Victorian mentality.
02:51The moment we name it, label it, and you know, people start recognising it, awareness
02:59increases, people know, so the moment we criminalise this marital rape, there will be survivors
03:08who will come out and report about it, because there are many women who are going through
03:12and they will know, these survivors will know that this is not okay.