Join the march and criminalize marital rape (The Tribune)
Mar. 8, 2024– The Tribune
Equality Bahamas founder and co-director Alicia Wallace featured in The Tribune on March 8, 2024.
Alicia penned an article for The Tribune’s special International Women’s Day supplement.
Read it in full below.
The criminalization of marital rape has long been a hot potato. Everyone who has been a parliamentarian or senator over the past two decades, at least, knows that marital rape is an issue that needs to be addressed, yet there has been little action to amend the Sexual Offenses Act. No political party has shown true interest in ending gender-based violence against women and few politicians have clearly, unequivocally stated their support for criminalizing marital rape or that marital rape is rape. More politicians have avoided the topic or said, in some way, that it is a “private matter” when other forms of domestic violence and the same sexual violence committed by non-spouses are not relegated to the private realm.
The Sexual Offences Act Section 3 has a definition of rape that excludes spouses as perpetrators. The issue with the definition is in five words. The definition begins, “Rape is the act of any person not under fourteen years of age having sexual intercourse with another person who is not his spouse [without consent].” “Who is not his spouse” creates a spousal exception to the violent act of rape.
In 2018, there was a draft bill to amend the Sexual Offences Act to criminalize marital rape, and it failed to remove “who is not his spouse” from the definition of rape. There were other unacceptable terms including an absurd temporal limitation. Equality Bahamas rejected this amendment bill and presented the elements that need to be included in a bill to criminalize marital rape through the #Strike5ive campaign.
- Remove “who is not his spouse” from the definition of rape in Section 3. Marital rape is rape. Women have bodily autonomy, and this includes the right to say “no” to anyone, including their spouses. A marriage license must not be license to rape.
- Repeal Section 15 on “sexual assault by spouse” as all rape would be covered by the Act when the definition in Section 3 is appropriately amended. This section gives circumstances under which rape is acknowledged by the law when perpetrated by a spouse, limiting it to cases where the married people are separated or in the process of getting divorced.
- Include a statutory definition of consent. The Sexual Offences Act currently refers to the definition of consent in the Penal Code which is vague and applies to a wide range of circumstances. It must have a definition of consent that is specific to sex and sexual violence. The Canadian Penal Code has a definition of consent and it is a strong example. It states that consent does not exist when the complainant is unconscious, the complainant is not capable of consenting, the complainant expresses, in words or action, a lack of agreement to engage in the activity, or the complainant does not agree to continue in the activity. It is important to make clear where consent does and does not exist.
- Include a clause of non-immunity on the basis of marriage. It must be made explicit that rape is not legally excusable or prosecuted differently by reason of marriage. Marriage cannot be a defense for rape.
The Government of The Bahamas is obligated to criminalize marital rape and has acknowledged this obligation in its participation in international human rights mechanisms. In 1993, it ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and its last report to the CEDAW Committee was in 2018. In its Concluding Observations, the CEDAW Committee recommended that the government “adopt, with delay, the amendments to the Sexual Offences Act expressly criminalizing marital rape{…]” In 2023, when The Bahamas underwent its Universal Periodic Review, several Member States, including Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Indonesia, and Mexico, called upon the State to criminalize marital rape. The Government of The Bahamas provided mixed responses, sometimes supporting (or accepting) the recommendations and sometimes noting (or rejecting) them.
This International Women’s Day, Equality Bahamas calls on the general public to support the #Strike5ive campaign for the criminalization of marital rape. Join us on the march on Saturday, March 9 and get your red bandana to show everyone your position on this issue and your dedication to the efforts to compel the government to criminalize marital rape in the most explicit terms.