COMMENT: It’s high time Singapore criminalised marital rape
(Photo: AFP)
Kirsten Han is a Singaporean blogger, journalist and filmmaker. She is also involved in the We Believe in Second Chances campaign for the abolishment of the death penalty. A social media junkie, she tweets at @kixes. The views expressed are her own.
After much lobbying from activists, it appears as if India is finally moving towards criminalising marital rape. The minister of state for home affairs indicated in the upper house of Parliament recently that the government will be proposing amendments to the Indian Penal Code to criminalise marital rape. If that amendment really comes to pass, “she’s my wife” will no longer be a legal defence for rape in India.
It’s a positive sign from India, but what about in Singapore? Marital rape is still not considered a crime here, as long as the wife in question is not under the age of 13. So technically a man could rape his wife – who could be as young as 13 – and still not be prosecuted for rape.
The only situations in which marital rape is criminalised in Singapore is if there are already divorce proceedings under way, if the court has already issued an injunction prohibiting the man from having sex with his wife, or if the wife already has a protection order against her husband.
The logic behind not criminalising marital rape is essentially patriarchal and outmoded. It assumes that a woman, upon marriage, automatically gives consent to any and every sexual encounter her husband chooses to have with her. Once she signs that marriage certificate, she is deemed to have handed over agency over her own body.
Such a reasoning should have no place in Singaporean society today. Women do not simply sign away their right to their own bodies upon marriage. No man, not even her husband, should have the right to her body if consent is not given.
The refuse to criminalise marital rape also has its consequences outside of the courts. It signals to society that rape within the marital home is not a crime that we all need to stand against, but simply a “domestic issue” that the couple need to work out in private. Worse, the refusal to acknowledge women’s agency over their bodies perpetuates the mindset that wives should submit to their husbands. Such pervasive mindsets in society leave women who have faced sexual assault by their husbands isolated and vulnerable, and makes it more difficult for them to seek help or report the abuse they have suffered.
Marital rape is already recognised and criminalised in many countries. There is no good reason why Singapore should not do the same.
