My full email to the media on the proposed amendment to the Penal Code (marital rape)

We take the view that the time has now arrived when the law should declare a rapist a rapist subject to the criminal law, irrespective of his relationship with his victim.’

The above statement was made in the UK Court of Appeal case in 1991 where the court held that marital rape exception “no longer remotely represents what is the true position of a wife in present-day society”.

As women in modern day in Singapore, we agree wholeheartedly with the above view.

The above Court of Appeal judgment was upheld by the House of Lords and subsequently the European Court of Human Rights, with the result that the marital exemption to rape is commonly regarded to have been abolished in 1994 (the date of the House of Lords judgment).

More than ten years later, the Singapore Parliament is considering a revision to its criminal laws to condone marital rape except in very limited cases where, generally, the wife has already obtained an injunction against her husband to restrain him from abusing her. However, the general thrust of the proposed amendment is clear – that marital rape is, in the main, not a criminal offence.

The idea that men enjoy "conjugal rights" of sexual relations can be traced back to 1736.

‘But the husband cannot be guilty of rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for their matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract.’ (Sir Matthew Hale, 1736 History of the Pleas of the Crown)

Is a law from the 18th century England still valid in Singapore today?

Aside from the United Kingdom, many countries in the Asia Pacific region including Australia, Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka have criminalised marital rape. Even in India, the marital rape exemption was abolished in October this year.

Further, most women and many men in Singapore would not agree that a man has the right to demand sex from his wife at any time. Marriage is based on mutual love, consideration, respect and trust. The belief that a man can enjoy his “conjugal right” of sexual relations whenever he so wishes strips away the foundations of marriage.

The Singapore Parliament is now finally going to consider the criminalization of marital rape. We hope that the new generation of Parliamentarians will seize on this opportunity to rectify this anachronism in our laws so that it is more reflective of the attitudes of the women and men in Singapore.

If Parliament refuses to generally criminalize marital rape, it should, at the very minimum, abolish marital immunity in the following cases, in addition to the current proposed instances:

1. marriages in which divorce/separation proceedings have begun;
2. marriages in which the conditions are such that a court of law would accept that irretrievable breakdown has occurred
3. marriages in which any police report of violence or abuse has been filed by either party;
4. marriages in which an application for maintenance within marriage has been filed at court;
5. marriages in which there is a history of emotional or financial abuse - to which there can be independent witnesses;
6. marriages in which either party has a record of drug use, problem drinking, problem gambling or similar issues.

Our homes are our sanctuaries. We would want our female sisters, daughters, cousins to feel safe in their marriages and in their homes, rather than providing them with less protection against rape once they are married.

Based on the results of the 1998 and 2000 British Crime Survey as reported in the UK Home Office Research Study 237, "current partners" (including boy/girl friends) were responsible for 45% of rapes, and 55% of rapes happened in the victims' own homes.

In the US, since 1993, it is a crime in all 50 states for a man to rape his wife.

In research done in the US, in a survey of 900 randomly selected women, 3% had experienced rape by a stranger 8% had experienced rape by a husband. Taking into account only the married women in the survey, this adds up to 14% or 1 in 7 married women have been raped by their husbands. This figure (between 10 to 20%) is supported by a number of different research done in the US.

The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993) declared marital rape to be a form of violence against women (Art 2(a)) to be eliminated by all states.

Tan Joo Hymn
President
AWARE
8 November 2006