The Tribune

By MALCOLM STRACHAN

DESPITE frequent calls for legislation on the issue of marital rape from activists, Bahamian women – and even the prime minister’s wife – the attorney general has said it won’t be happening during this administration.

At an event last week at the University of The Bahamas, when asked if the government plans to table the bill before the end of its term, Ryan Pinder said: “I don’t think so. I think you would’ve heard the panel discuss about the political impacts on that.”

Political impacts? That is where the priority lies, it would seem. Mr Pinder went on to say, when asked if it was putting votes before legislation: “There’s nothing unique about this. There’s a reason why no administration has passed and every single administration has drafted a bill – every single one. I have them all.”

So much for having a leader called Brave, I guess.

Back when pastor Rex Major spoke up at a national ecumenical church service in June 2023 and lamented efforts to criminalise marital rape, saying that people lie, it brought a swift rebuke from Ann Marie Davis, saying: “I like Rex Major, but I don’t agree with him.”

She added: “I invite the good pastor to talk to people that this has happened to and read up on it and get a little knowledge on it, because people are in a place where because they haven’t seen it or experienced it or lived it, it doesn’t happen, but it does happen.”

Note the words in there, “that this has happened to”. This is not some theoretical or semantic discussion – this is something that affects women’s lives. Is that really something to discount because you worry how it will affect your electoral math? What are you in government for if it’s not to make the tough decisions?

That was not the only time Mrs Davis spoke up on the issue – in December 2022 she had said: “We must agitate and hold our policy makers accountable. We want them to upgrade our laws and we really need that.

“Imagine, we are still living in a society where no does not mean no. How could that be? I tell you no and you think I mean yes. No, sir. Of course I’m talking about marital rape, right. No means no.”

Imagine.

In October 2022, some of the findings of a University of The Bahamas study was released that showed that one in 12 married women have been raped by their husbands. That would work out to about 4,000 married women in the country.

Imagine where 4,000 people have been subjected to a violent, horrible, horrific crime – and left with no legal path to justice.

At the time, Prime Minister Philip Davis urged victims of rape – whether married or single – to report such abuse to the police. He said: “The law takes into account the separation of persons who would have had a marriage and any assault on a woman, be it whether you call it rape, grievous harm or otherwise, the law should take its course.”

Except the law struggles to be able to take its course – that is why there is a need for legislation, and it is legislation that we have committed to as part of international agreements. If it is too difficult to bring the legislation, why did we say we would?

That university study should have been a turning point – recognising just how widespread marital rape is in our society.

It turns out that we are doing what was being done before the study was released – ignoring the crimes that take place among us every day.

We should likely not be surprised – earlier that year National Security Minister Wayne Munroe that we should call marital rape something other than rape if we are to secure convictions. He also said we would have to change our divorce laws, saying: “If your spouse can withdraw consent for sex, then adultery ought no longer be a ground for divorce.”

He added: “Will willfully refusing your spouse intercourse remain a description of cruelty or available for cruelty?”

As I noted in August 2022 in response to that, how many times does a spouse have to refuse being raped before it is deemed willfull in the eyes of the law?

It is more than a century since the first country elsewhere in the world criminalised marital rape, back in 1922.

Our laws are a matter of international concern – in 2023, Mr Pinder revealed that the failure to criminalise marital rape was other countries’ number one human rights concern with The Bahamas during the United Nations Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review.

You might ask why those countries are demanding of us instead of attending to themselves – well, they have. By 2019, about 150 countries had criminalised marital rape, including all 50 US states.

Under our laws, the definition of rape is “the act of any person not under 14 years of age having sexual intercourse with another person who is not his spouse a) without the consent of that other person; b) with consent which has been extorted by threats or fear of bodily harm; c) with consent obtained by personating the spouse of that other person; d) with consent obtained by false and fraudulent representations as to the nature and quality of the act”.

One of the arguments put forward on the law is because there would perhaps be very few cases but forward – and yet we took the time to enshrine in the law someone impersonating a spouse to fool someone into sex. Count how many times that charge has come up in court.

And as I stated in a previous column, one of the arguments put forward for not criminalising marital rape is the suggestion that because a married couple is considered “one”, one cannot deny one’s own self. Tell that to the many victims of other forms of marital violence, for which we do allow the law to intervene.

When I wrote in this column in August 2022 about marital rape, I concluded: “The way this is being talked about is exactly the way an issue gets discussed that a politician has no intention to do anything about. So perhaps this is a fool’s errand – but equally, we should not let our leaders treat us like fools.”

Our leaders have done exactly as was expected – and kicked the can down the road again, regardless of how many people have called for the law to change, regardless of how highly placed those people are in our society, and regardless of how many victims there have been – and how many more there might be.

So if anyone from this current administration tells you that they will address this in future, look them in the eye and judge them by their actions now, not their promises for later.