A Gut-Wrenching First Person Account Of Marital Rape By A Woman Who's Petitioning For Justice

“The concept of marital rape does not apply in India because society treats marriage as sacred”

This is what the government declared in Parliament a month ago, kicking off another intense debate and discussion about marital rape in India. While citing India’s deeply patriarchal laws, we had pointed out how marital rape, which is not recognised in the country, puts India in the same league as Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan. We present a brave first person account of a 27-year-old marital rape survivor, who has now petitioned the courts to recognise marital rape as a brutal crime, deserving of punishment, regardless of the relationship between perpetrator and victim. While we might be unpopular for saying this, we do believe this law is a particularly complex one, and needs to be reviewed differently in the Indian context. However, as she recounts the horrors of her first year of marriage, it’s likely to leave you - as it did us - asking the same question every time the defence of ‘marriage sanctity’ comes up: what about the sanctity of consent?

They say that the institution of marriage is sacred, and that family life will be disturbed if a husband/wife relationship is questioned. But I want to know - if a woman is tortured under the bondage of marriage, will that not affect the family structure?

Every night was a nightmare. I used to get jitters before going into my room at night. I would dread the thought of what was awaiting me. What happened in our bedroom every night was not what normally happens between a husband and wife; I felt like he had bought me. I was treated like a sex slave, like a sex toy. He would insert things inside me, slap me, and bite me. I had bite marks all over my breasts. He was like an animal. Even during my menstruation, he wouldn’t spare me.

It was the 14th of February, 2014, and it was his birthday, for which I had baked a cake. What he did to me that night is a disgrace to the institution of marriage. He hit me 17 to 18 times with a box and with a [flashlight], after which he inserted [the flashlight] into my vagina. I started bleeding but instead of taking me to the hospital he took me to my in-laws’ house and locked me up there until late evening. When the bleeding didn’t stop, my in-laws took me to the hospital. I was in a semi-conscious state and had to be taken in an ambulance. My legs and my entire body had swollen up, and I was bleeding profusely. I bled for 60 long days.

The torture was not just limited to that one incident. My life changed completely after that day. I was thrown out of my house within 10 days and my husband told the landlord that he had nothing to do with me, and that I should leave. I also lost my job of working as a human resources executive in a multi-national company, because I wasn’t able to work. My manager told me to keep my personal and work life apart, but I wasn’t in a position to ignore my personal life.

No one cares about you if you are a married woman. If a girl is raped, then at least people come out to support her and the rapist is treated as an outcast. But if your husband rapes you, no one says or does anything. You are on your own.
This marriage is not about sitting together and mutually deciding things. The Delhi Police [Crime Against Women] unit would summon us together, but I was scared to face even him.

I’m in a bad financial condition today, since I took a loan for my marriage, sold my car, and also withdrew my [pension fund] to give a dowry to my husband’s family. I am almost penniless now. One night, I was on the [streets] because I didn’t have a house to go to. There have been days when I had no money for food and survived on oats and milk. No one comes to help you.

I’m not angry, but I’m sad. I’m sad at the condition of the women in my country who face this, day after day, night after night. If, as an educated and independent woman, I’m struggling for justice, think about the many women who endure the pain and torture in silence every day. Will there never be a law that upholds their rights? 
I don’t understand the law. I’m a layman. All I want to know is: Don’t married women have any right to approach the legal system? Are they only meant to suffer, commit suicide or die?”

She continues to fight her case in the lower courts in the National Capital Region, as lawyers from the Human Rights Lawyer Network (HRLN) have filed her case under Section 498 A under which cruelty in the form of physical and sexual harassment by husband or family entails punishment of three years in prison and the Domestic Violence Act, 2005 which does not allow criminal charges to be filed against a husband. Her lawyers have decided to go to the Supreme Court with a new petition with the support of women’s rights organisations and pan-India data on marital rape, but to no avail as far as her personal quest for justice is concerned, as the law is never retroactive.