Women share anguish of fleeing abusive husbands in India where marital rape isn’t a crime

WARNING: This story contains graphic discussion of sexual violence.

A tear rolled down the 21-year-old’s cheek as she recalled her wedding night in India three years ago and the start of the history of sexual abuse she says she endured.

She said it was the first time her drunken husband forced himself on her, but was far from the last.

“He would have sex with me without my permission. It didn’t matter if I was comfortable or not,” said the young woman, whose name isn’t being released by CBC due to the abuse she faced in the relationship.

“It wasn’t only occasionally. He would force himself on me all the time, six or seven times a day, and I never agreed to it.” 

The new bride had just turned 18 and said she was at pains to understand how her in-laws, who could hear the abuse through the thin walls of the family home, wouldn’t help her.

Her husband, however, gave her a clue. 

“My husband used to say that now that we are married, you are my property,” she said. “And after marriage, every wife has to listen to her husband, no matter what.”

That view is deeply ingrained in India’s patriarchal society, where it’s not a crime for a husband to force his wife to have sex with him if she’s at least 18 years old. 

And the government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi would like to keep it that way, arguing it would be “excessively harsh” to make marital rape illegal — an issue that’s expected to come before the country’s Supreme Court after numerous delays.

‘Women are just appendages,’ advocate says

Women’s rights campaigners have long sought to change the law, but it’s been an uphill battle. 

“Women are just appendages — appendages of the father, then the husband, then the son,” said Mariam Dhawale, general secretary of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA).

AIDWA is one of the petitioners in the ongoing court battles to criminalize marital rape in the South Asian country, which has persistently high levels of sexual violence against women.

India’s colonial-era penal code dating back to the 1860s was recently overhauled, but in the section that states rape is illegal, there’s a notable exception — it’s not rape if non-consensual sexual acts are committed by a man with his wife, as long as she’s 18 or older.

“It’s more than frustrating; it is angering,” Dhawale said.

She called the legal system “exploitative and unjust” toward Indian women, and said it’s because sexual violence is so normalized in the country.

However, the case now in the hands of India’s Supreme Court — after a lower court’s 2022 split verdict on the legality of marital rape immunity for husbands — could be pivotal for Indian society. A date for oral arguments before the top court hasn’t yet been set.

Activist calls India ‘anti-women’

In early October, Modi’s government submitted its affidavit to the Supreme Court, outlining why it’s against making it a crime for a man to rape his wife if she’s not underage. 

Changing the law, the document reads, would be “excessively harsh and therefore, disproportionate,” and could cause “serious disturbances in the institution of marriage” when there are already “sufficiently adequate” legal protections for married women against sexual violence. 

People don’t understand that this is happening and this is wrong. Women are made to believe that it does not exist and it’s not something that is even worth talking about.– Monika Tiwary, counsellor in New Delhi

The government also argues that, within a marriage, there is an expectation of “reasonable sexual access” to one’s spouse, although the affidavit adds the expectation doesn’t entitle a husband to force his wife to have sex against her will. 

Dhawale and other activists aren’t surprised by the government’s stance.

“This government is highly anti-women,” she said. “It doesn’t see women as independent identities.” 

‘I kept saying no’ 

The long and painful legal battle to criminalize rape within marriage is particularly disturbing for women who fought hard to be freed from abusive relationships. 

“I kept saying no, but he just would not listen,” said a 33-year-old rape survivor who escaped her husband’s home, in a village in one of India’s poorest states, with her two daughters. The CBC also isn’t naming her publicly because of the abuse, which in her case included death threats.

She said she would have panic attacks when her husband approached her, but it took 12 years of constant rape for her to muster up the strength to leave because she feared she had nobody to turn to for help.

“The answer would be, ‘You’re married, this is normal,'” she said. “If you are a man [in India], you have all the rights and girls have no rights.”

She was adamant that husbands need to be punished for raping their wives. She acknowledged, however, that it would be difficult to get the law changed because of the deep-seated belief in India that a husband has the right to do what he wants with his spouse.

Women are told “not to make a scene or a ruckus,” she said. Still, she wants wives suffering at the hands of their husbands to raise their voices loudly.

“The girls should not stay quiet; they have to keep trying to get away while they are still alive.” 

Counsellor says few survivors seek help

For counsellor Monika Tiwary, it’s a constant struggle to break down the taboo around speaking about marital rape.

She’s been working with sexual assault survivors for more than a decade in New Delhi, yet can count on one hand the number of women who had reached out for help after being raped repeatedly by their husbands.

“Very few survivors come forward,” Tiwary said, calling marital rape a hidden but widespread problem.

“People don’t understand that this is happening and this is wrong. Women are made to believe that it does not exist and it’s not something that is even worth talking about.” 

A rape is reported every 16 minutes in India, according to statistics in a 2022 National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, “Crime in India.” Although official data is scarce, most activists estimate only a tiny fraction of women who experience sexual violence lodge a complaint with authorities.

According to the most recent government National Family Health Survey, an average Indian woman is 17 times more likely to face sexual violence from her husband than from others.

More than a third of married women surveyed had experienced physical, sexual or emotional spousal violence, with six per cent admitting they had suffered sexual assault at the hands of their husbands.

Hope endures in struggle to protect women

The court case on whether to criminalize marital rape is inching forward in a climate of increased scrutiny over the prevalence of sexual violence against women in India. 

In August, thousands protested the rape and killing of a trainee doctor while she was on a long shift at her hospital in the western city of Kolkata, and hundreds of thousands of doctors went on strike to demand better safety measures for female health workers.

I want to keep living. I don’t want to go back.​​​​​– Abuse survivor in India, 21

Activists say little has changed over the years, despite previous high-profile incidents of rape, with the conviction rate for accused rapists remaining low, at around 27 per cent, according to the NCRB.

In 2012, a 23-year-old physiotherapist died after being beaten on a moving bus and raped using a metal rod. The widespread demonstrations and global outcry that followed prompted the government to implement stiffer rape laws.

“It’s a struggle going on all the time in India” to better protect women against sexual violence, including those suffering silently in abusive marriages, Dhawale said.

Dhawale holds out hope the Supreme Court will decide in the petitioners’ favour — a move she said would be a huge first step in starting to change the mentality in India toward consent. 

Young survivor still chasing her dreams

The rape survivor who was married off at 18 also hopes there will one day be a law against marital rape. 

But she’s more concentrated on forgetting her painful past.

“I feel very depressed when I think about it. I don’t want to remember any of that,” she said, her voice breaking.

She said she’s still on medication she was put on after being hospitalized following a severe beating by her husband.

But she’s also determined to stay strong and move forward in her life. She’s filing for divorce, and is living in a shelter and taking high school equivalency courses with the dream of becoming a makeup artist. 

“I want to keep living. I don’t want to go back.”

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For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. ​​If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.