Describe of Marital Rape Victims - Paper Example

There are various cases of marital rape in the modern society. Marital rape can be thought to mean the use of force and violence without having the consideration of the feeling of the wife while when having sexual intercourse. Women who have gone through marital rape ordeals have faced various challenges among them being physical, mental and emotional torture in their lives (Yllo & Torres, 2016). The men in their lives do not care what their wives want or their feelings, and treat them like objects, sex objects. In many case, the women are forced to have sex with their husbands when they are pregnant or even when they have just given birth thereby making sexual intercourse to be a very painful experience. Despite the challenges that the women face in their lives, there are limited solutions to their challenges for various common reasons (West, 2015).

One of such being the economic dependency that they have on their husbands, in this case, they fear reporting cases of marital rape to the authorities for the fear being divorced and are forced to endure the pains of marital rape (West, 2015). Additionally, laws of various countries do not expressly define grounds of marital rape and the lack of marital rape makes it challenging to prosecute such cases. Moreover, the love that wives and husbands share also proves to a hindrance in reporting cases of marital rape for the fear of losing their lovers after accusing them and are then forced to endure their pains alone. Finally, most of the women undergoing ordeals of marital rape do not have legal knowledge on how to prosecute such cases, this is in addition to the social belief and coercion from other females that women are supposed to submit to their husbands to avoid losing their dignity or family dignity (Yllo & Torres, 2016).

Why Marital Rape Victims Have Not Been Given Appropriate Attention

There are various reasons why marital rape victims have not received the kind of attention they require, and one of the reasons for the same is that most of the cases go unreported to the relevant authorities (Yllo & Torres, 2016). Secondly, most of the societies in the modern society do not attach a criminal offence on marital rape, as most believe that sex is a right to both parties to either partners in a marriage. Moreover, there is the assumption in the society that marital rape is less harmful as compared to stranger rape and is therefore viewed as a lesser crime that needs not be reported in any court of law (West, 2015). Finally, lack of appropriate attention arises from the fact that marital rape is commonly viewed as the wives withholding sex thereby creating the notion that the women being raped in their marriages not provide conjugal rights to their husbands, and that is a crime in marriage.

Raising Awareness of the Plight of Marital Rape Victims

There are various ways of raising awareness of the plight of marital rape victims, and the first one is educating oneself on the grounds of marital rape and details of the same. In this manner, marital rape is having sex with ones partner after being coerced or being forced into it. Married women need to be educated on the same (West, 2015). Secondly, one can volunteer to create awareness on the vice in marriages and stage a fight to raise awareness by either opening a crisis center for women to report, start a hotline, participate in raising funds for fighting such crimes, and advocating for survivors of marital rape. Additionally, the social media can play a critical role in raising awareness within ones network and the same can help spread the news (Yllo & Torres, 2016). Finally, there is a need to engage the community in joining hands to support efforts to end marital rape in the society.

References

West, R. (2015). Marital Rape, Consent, and Human Rights: Comment on Criminalizing Sexual Violence Against Women in Intimate Relationships. American Journal of International Law, 109, 197-201.

Yllo, K., & Torres, M. G. (Eds.). (2016). Marital rape: Consent, marriage, and social change in global context. Oxford University Press.