Marital Rape Of Minor Girls Is A 'Social Reality', Cannot Be Criminalised: Government Tells Delhi High Court

The Union Home Ministry has admitted in the court that despite the efforts to crackdown on child marriages, the practice is still rampant in India.

The MHA, in a submission told the Delhi High Court that due to "social realities" the decision to retain a girl's minimum age as 15 years to marry was taken under the amended rape law to protect a couple against decriminalisation of their sexual activity.

AP/ Representative Image

The submission was made as a reply to a PIL which claimed that there was an inconsistency in the amended rape law which protected a husband from prosecution for the offence of unnatural sex with his wife.

What is even more shocking is that the MHA said according to the amended law, husbands have been protected from prosecution for any sexual acts with their wives who are above 15 years of age in view of the "social reality" of child marriages in India.

"Although the age of consent is 18 years and child marriage is discouraged, marriage below the permissible age is avoidable but not void in law on account of social realities," it added.

Reuters/ Representative Image

This is not the first time the government has failed to have a clear position when it came to marital rape.

Earlier the government had told the parliament that the concept of marital rape cannot be applicable in the Indian context.

¡°It is considered that the concept of marital rape, as understood internationally, cannot be suitably applied in the Indian context,¡± MoS Home, Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary told the parliament in March.

Later, in April, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said the government was considering criminalizing marital rape.

PTI

Criminalising marital rape has always remained a contentious topic in India.

In 2013, before the rape law was amended, a parliamentary committee had claimed that ¡°If marital rape is brought under the law, the entire family system will be under great stress,¡± The government eventually passed a new sexual-assault law, which did not criminalize marital rape.

Even though marital rape is not widely reported in India, according to a study by the UN Population Fund, more than two-third of married women in India, aged between 15 to 49 have been beaten, raped or forced to provide sex.