PM: Nat’l conversation needed on marital rape

Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis said yesterday that a national conversation is needed on the issue of marital rape.

“Marital rape is wrong,” Davis said in a tweet.

“We remain one of the few countries in the world where that is not recognized in the law. An effort to change the law should be part of a larger national conversation and consensus. I very much support having that national conversation.”

The tweet came after the prime minister faced backlash after he indicated that marital rape will not be a priority item for his government. 

On Wednesday, when asked whether the matter will be on his administration’s agenda, Davis told The Nassau Guardian, “I have too many other things on my agenda to be thinking about.”

The prime minister’s comments toward the issue came after a study found that 39.6 percent of male and 43.8 percent of female respondents in university in The Bahamas agreed that a married couple cannot rape each other.

The study, which was published in the most recent volume of the International Journal for Bahamian Studies, said the responses indicated “considerable disagreement on this topic in a society where the law recognizes rape only outside of marriage”.

It noted that some respondents in the study indicated that they may have been sexually abused by their husbands.

The issue of marital rape has long been a hot-button one.

In late 2017, controversy resurfaced after United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women Dubravka Simonovic said that The Bahamas is out of step with the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) as it has failed to criminalize all forms of marital rape.

The Bahamas ratified the convention in October 1993.

In 2018, during an appearance before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, then Attorney General Carl Bethel said the government intended to criminalize marital rape.

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source https://thenassauguardian.com/pm-natl-conversation-needed-on-marital-rape/