Marion Bethel, the vice chairperson and rapporteur of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
By JADE RUSSELL
Tribune Staff Reporter
jrussell@tribunemedia.net
A STUDY highlighting the threats married women face emphasises the need to criminalise marital rape, women’s rights advocate Marion Bethel said yesterday.
Mrs Bethel, the vice chairperson and rapporteur of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), spoke to The Tribune following the publication of research by University of The Bahamas professors, which showed that married women surveyed were more likely to have non-consensual sex than single women.
“There’s been an urgency to criminalise marital rape from decades ago,” she said. “We brought it before the public at least 10 years ago, 15 years ago, so every day it’s urgent, it’s not just newly urgent.
“Married women are unprotected in regard to rape. Married women are the only group of women where they are not protected, their human right to be free from gender-based violence is not protected.”
“Under the current rape laws, a man, a husband, has immunity and impunity in raping his wife. This is absolutely wrong. It is a violation of the married woman’s rights to have a choice as to whether she wants to have sex with her husband at any point in time. Our bodies are our own. They’re autonomous, and we have the right to choose to have sex with our husbands and to engage in that way. So, yes, marital rape should be criminalised and it is long overdue it’s not a new thing.”
The study by UB professors noted that married were 3.07 times more likely to have non-consensual sex than single women.
“Overall, 38.2 per cent of 60 married women who had non-consensual sex indicated that they would leave the relationship if they could, compared to 11.5 per cent of 357 married women who had not experienced non-consensual sex,” the study reported.
Although the government is considering criminalising marital rape, much uncertainty remains as to whether it will do so.
“I think they must feel very vulnerable and that the government isn’t taking it seriously,” Mrs Bethel said about women forced to have sex in marriages. “I think we as a society don’t take marital rape very seriously. We think that it is a right or a right for couples that they have to have sex at the time that the man mandates, no that is not so.”
“It’s a cultural mind shift that needs to be changed. Just because you’ve gotten married doesn’t mean that you’ve given an infinite yes to having sex. You can choose to have sex with your husband that is the right that he has that is the right that the woman has.”
The Bahamas is one of the few countries in the region to explicitly exclude marital rape from its definition of rape, except where spouses are legally separated or subject to separation proceedings.
Comments
JackArawak 8 months, 3 weeks ago
the government has no respect for women, has no intention of protecting them and will continue to lick the boot heel of whichever pastor says that "according to the bible....."
Sickened 8 months, 3 weeks ago
First of all I am 100% against the antiquated law that protects men who rape their wives. The law is beyond idiotic and the men that do it deserve to be boiled alive in tar. However, according to the last sentence of the second paragraph I find it very difficult to believe that married woman are more likely to be a victim on non-consensual sex than single woman UNLESS the study was not clear when specifying who married women had non-consensual sex with. Reading other articles it doesn't seem clear that married women were pointedly asked whether the abuser was their husband or a "partner". I would think that single women hooking up with random men would be much more likely to have non-consensual sex.
joeblow 8 months, 3 weeks ago
... I think it is criminal that women cannot be accused of rape. How many women have had sex with under aged males or a non-consenting spouse? Did the UB study even consider that?
Gender specific crimes are discriminatory in every instance!
ThisIsOurs 8 months, 3 weeks ago
I completely add agree with criminalizing marital rape. But I do not believe a court would or should accept "I didnt feel like it" as justification for a rape charge, because rape is a serious charge. I'd expect the judge to say find other accomodations. I'd expect that this charge would be levied when evidence of serious abuse mental or physical is taking place.
That said, 60 is a very small sample size to make generalizations about the entire population. If these married women are all employed by COB or live in a particular neighbourhood you might be able to generalize about that subset
John 8 months, 3 weeks ago
When a woman doesn’t even carry her husband’s last name, how can anything she says about marriage be credible. If she doesn’t submit in public do you think she is submissive in the bedroom or even compliant in fulfilling other duties of marriage? And notice what the some of the 60 persons ( those who claim marital rape) are saying ‘if they could leave the relationship they would.’ So was always their intention? To leave the relationship? And now to get an easy way out by passing the marital rape law then bring FALSE accusations against their husbands, having him criminally charged vans convicted and she gets to strut around free with a married woman’s title but no husband and no reason to live by or fulfil the covenants of marriage. These are dirty, wicked women who so want to tamper with the requirements of God’s Holy Matrimony and cherry pick which covenants they want to keep and fulfill and which ones they bwant to finger. Basically this Marion Bethel character is saying she wants the honor of being a married woman but the freedoms of being a single woman, unreserved and unrestricted. Moses said he granted divorce because of the hardening of man’s ( husbands and wives) hearts. When a man no longer has natural affection for his wife and when the wife can no longer be submissive to her husband, that marriage is already dead. Finished. And rather than two people staying together and bringing harm to each other, possibly even killing each other, Moses says it’s better that they divorce.
John 8 months, 3 weeks ago
‘ Moses permitted divorce because of the men's hardness of heart (Deut. 24:1-4; Mark 10:5), though the ideal had always been for one man and one woman to live in loving, forgiving monogamy. Sometimes there are legitimate grounds for divorce, such as sexual infidelity -- Matthew noted Joseph's righteousness in choosing to divorce his pregnant wife Mary (Matt. 1:19). In Matthew 19:9, Matthew records that Jesus' own teaching on this subject made this exception explicit. But it would seem that in Moses' day, some divorces were born of hard hearts, and were not based on sexual infidelity. The regulations Moses imposed did not specifically permit divorce, but assumed it. The regulations were that a certificate be given, and that remarriage not occur if there were an intervening marriage to another man.
In Moses' day, the people knew God's ideal because it had been modeled for them in Eden (Gen. 1:27; 2:18,24; Matt.19:4-6; Mark 10:6-9). The ancient Jews understood creation ordinances to have been established by God's creative acts, so that the way God had established creation became a normative model for life (compare the Sabbath commandment in Exod. 20:11; 31:17). Thus, Moses permission of divorce was not intended to condone the practice. Rather, it was part of God's accommodation to his sinful people. The permission did not imply divine approval, but divine forbearance. ’
ThisIsOurs 8 months, 3 weeks ago
Leave the biblical rational out of it. The bible is Gods word to his people, unless you're talking to a group of christians it's not the guide book. And I'm going to bet there are more non christians than christians in this country, going to church and sunday school doesnt make you a christian
M0J0 8 months, 3 weeks ago
There is no real justification for marital rape in my estimation. It can be used as a tool to simply get back at a husband for any reason. We are placing a lot of power into the hands of a woman who may not be doing things for the correct reason. Women can already simply say a man did such an such and immediately he is presumed guilty. There will be many innocent men locked up for a crime they did not commit. Secondly marriage will simply cease, because if my wife can simply say I rape her and I am locked up, why have a wife.
Sickened 8 months, 3 weeks ago
So what is your suggestion to protect married woman who are held down on a regular basis and forced to have sex with a belligerent husband?
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