Day of Blogs

Activists in Bahrain are stepping up their efforts to criminalize spousal rape, which currently holds no penalties.

Rights activists in Bahrain have accelerated their efforts to penalise ‘spousal rape’ by launching a new campaign to promote the implementation of a family law to regulate judgments at Shariah Courts.

Presidents of the Women’s Union Mariam Al Ruwai told Khaleej Times yesterday that the law was the ultimate solution to protect women from many types of abuses and discriminations they faced at courts.

[. . .]

Women’s rights activist Afaf Al Jamri highlighted the need for the implementation of a family law to bring justice to such women. She said many women had to tolerate physical violence at the hand of their husbands because of the wrong interpretation of Islamic regulations, mainly Hadith (sayings of the Holy Prophet peace be upon him). She stressed the need to focus on the Holy Quran as its verses could not be misinterpreted.

Those same misinterpretations are used by the government to excuse rape:

Scholar and judge at the Shariah Courts Shaikh Mohsin Al Asfoor told Khaleej Times that men had a right to establish physical contact with their wives as the word ‘rape’ doesn’t apply in relations between married couples. He said Shariah courts did not penalise men for forced sex, however they press abuse charges and not rape when one suffers physical injuries.

“Shariah courts have dismissed many cases filed by women against their husbands for forced or unwilling sex, especially by females who had signed the marriage contracts but were waiting for the formal marriage ceremony, because the religion allows a man to establish physical contact with his wife as per his wish,” Shaikh Al Asfoor explained.

Nice.

Those who like to argue “cultural relativism” with regards to crimes like rape seem to simply ignore the fact that local activists on the ground are aggitating for change.  And of course, things really aren’t so differnet even in countries where a woman can press charges against her husband for rape (or vice versa).  Survivors rarely come forward and when they do, they are rarely believed.  It’s hard enough to get a conviction in a case where the two parties have had any consensual sex in the past, let alone when we’re looking at a married couple.  Not only does consent once mean consent always to some people, but to too many (hi Phyllis Schlafly!), marriage still means ownership.  Until we manage to change both of those things, we’re all going to be fighting an uphill battle.