Shocked marital rape not treated with the seriousness it deserves: Shashi Tharoor
Tharoor highlighted that while India does have a strong anti-rape law, it does not extend to husbands. "Why should they be exempted?" he questioned.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Thursday said he was “shocked” that marital rape was “not treated with seriousness” it deserves, despite India having stringent anti-rape laws, PTI news agency reported.
“I am shocked to find that India is one of the few democracies in the world where the case of a husband raping his wife without her consent is not treated with the seriousness as it should have been,” Tharoor said, while speaking at a programme organised by the Prabha Khaitan Foundation in association with the FICCI Ladies Organisation.
Tharoor highlighted that while India does have a strong anti-rape law, it does not extend to husbands. "Why should they (husbands) be exempted?" Tharoor questioned.
If someone does not respect their life partner and rapes her against her wishes while citing conjugal relationship, that is violation of law and violence against women, PTI quoted the senior Congress leader as saying.
Tharoor further said that the current provisions are based on the “outdated assumption” that marriage is a sacred sacrament and “whatever happens within it cannot be classified otherwise.”
“We think a proper law against domestic rape is massively necessary in the country,” Tharoor said, while calling the exception of marital rape a “travesty” of justice.
Tharoor had, last week, introduced a private member’s bill in Parliament to amend the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and remove the marital rape exception. The senior Congress leader said the Bill seeks to reaffirm that “marriage cannot negate the woman’s right to grant or deny consent.”
In a post on X, Tharoor said that India must uphold its constitutional value and move from “‘No Means No’ to ‘Only Yes Means Yes'”. He said that the moment for action had come, while adding, “Every woman deserves the fundamental right to bodily autonomy and dignity within marriage, protections our legal system fails to provide.”
