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Women’s experiences of marital rape and sexual violence within marriage in India: evidence from service records

Sexual violence within marriage is common and manifests in various forms, including marital rape. It has serious physical and mental health consequences and is a violation of women’s sexual and reproductive health rights. Marital rape, reproductive coercion, inserting objects in the vagina or anus,...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Deosthali, Padma-Bhate, Rege, Sangeeta, Arora, Sanjida
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Taylor & Francis 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8967187/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35348043
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/26410397.2022.2048455
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author Deosthali, Padma-Bhate
Rege, Sangeeta
Arora, Sanjida
author_facet Deosthali, Padma-Bhate
Rege, Sangeeta
Arora, Sanjida
author_sort Deosthali, Padma-Bhate
collection PubMed
description Sexual violence within marriage is common and manifests in various forms, including marital rape. It has serious physical and mental health consequences and is a violation of women’s sexual and reproductive health rights. Marital rape, reproductive coercion, inserting objects in the vagina or anus, and withholding sexual pleasure are forms of violence routinely experienced by women. Based on service records of survivors coming to public hospitals in an Indian city, this paper presents their pathways to disclosure and institutional responses such as hospitals and police. The findings highlight that a large proportion of survivors of domestic violence confide having experienced forced sexual intercourse by the husband while sharing their experience of physical, economic, and emotional violence with crisis intervention counsellors. However, a small number of women do report marital rape to formal systems like hospitals and police. These systems respond inadequately to women reporting marital rape, as the rape law exempts rape by husband. Sexual violence within marriage can have serious health consequences, and a sensitive healthcare provider can create an enabling environment for disclosing abuse and providing relevant care and support. The paper argues that a necessary precondition to enable women to access health care and justice is to nullify “Exception 2 to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code” This exception exempts rape by the husband from the purview of the rape law.
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spelling pubmed-89671872022-03-31 Women’s experiences of marital rape and sexual violence within marriage in India: evidence from service records Deosthali, Padma-Bhate Rege, Sangeeta Arora, Sanjida Sex Reprod Health Matters Research Article Sexual violence within marriage is common and manifests in various forms, including marital rape. It has serious physical and mental health consequences and is a violation of women’s sexual and reproductive health rights. Marital rape, reproductive coercion, inserting objects in the vagina or anus, and withholding sexual pleasure are forms of violence routinely experienced by women. Based on service records of survivors coming to public hospitals in an Indian city, this paper presents their pathways to disclosure and institutional responses such as hospitals and police. The findings highlight that a large proportion of survivors of domestic violence confide having experienced forced sexual intercourse by the husband while sharing their experience of physical, economic, and emotional violence with crisis intervention counsellors. However, a small number of women do report marital rape to formal systems like hospitals and police. These systems respond inadequately to women reporting marital rape, as the rape law exempts rape by husband. Sexual violence within marriage can have serious health consequences, and a sensitive healthcare provider can create an enabling environment for disclosing abuse and providing relevant care and support. The paper argues that a necessary precondition to enable women to access health care and justice is to nullify “Exception 2 to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code” This exception exempts rape by the husband from the purview of the rape law. Taylor & Francis 2022-03-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8967187/ /pubmed/35348043 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/26410397.2022.2048455 Text en © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) ), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Deosthali, Padma-Bhate
Rege, Sangeeta
Arora, Sanjida
Women’s experiences of marital rape and sexual violence within marriage in India: evidence from service records
title Women’s experiences of marital rape and sexual violence within marriage in India: evidence from service records
title_full Women’s experiences of marital rape and sexual violence within marriage in India: evidence from service records
title_fullStr Women’s experiences of marital rape and sexual violence within marriage in India: evidence from service records
title_full_unstemmed Women’s experiences of marital rape and sexual violence within marriage in India: evidence from service records
title_short Women’s experiences of marital rape and sexual violence within marriage in India: evidence from service records
title_sort women’s experiences of marital rape and sexual violence within marriage in india: evidence from service records
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8967187/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35348043
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/26410397.2022.2048455
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