A victim of marital sexual abuse cannot be discriminated against only because she is the wife of the offender and has to be treated as any other rape victim, a Delhi court has observed while denying bail to a man accused of sodomising his pregnant wife.
The court said that though the legislature is yet to take a “serious note” of rampant cases of marital sexual abuse that women in the country suffer silently, it does not mean that “a battered wife, who has been sexually abused and has invoked the legal system, is not entitled to any state assistance which is available to other victims.”
Additional sessions judge Kamini Lau directed the Delhi government to take care of the woman, who has lodged a case against her husband for allegedly forcing her to establish sexual relations with him against the order of the nature after consuming alcohol, even when she was pregnant.
“She is the responsibility of the state and is required to be taken care of just as any other victim of aggravated sexual assault and abuse. The state can’t abdicate its responsibility and she cannot be discriminated for being the wife of the aggressor,” the court said.
New rules to treat rape victims
The Union health ministry, which has drawn new guidelines for treating rape victims, has asked all hospitals to set up a designated room for forensic and medical examination of victims, besides outlawing the two-finger test performed on them.
The department of health research along with Indian Council of Medical Research formulated the set of guidelines for dealing with criminal assault cases, which will hopefully put an end to the “horrendous” medical process, which the victims are subjected to.
