‘Criminalise marital rape’

About 18% of married women feel they can’t refuse sex with their husbands.

- New Delhi

Raped by her husband on her wedding night aged 17, Divya described her repeated suffering an all-toocommon account in India, permitted by a terrifying colonial-era legal loophole.

"I told him I have never had sex and asked him if we can take it slowly," said 19-year-old Divya, whose name has been changed to protect her identity.

"He said: 'No, the first night is very important for us men."" He then slapped her hard, ripped her clothes off and forced himself on her.

What followed her arranged wedding in 2022 was 19 months of sexual and physical abuse.

Six percent of married women aged 18-49 report spousal sexual violence, according to the government's latest National Family: Health Survey.

In the world's most populous country, that implies more than 10 million women have been sexual victims of their husbands.

Nearly 18 percent of married women feel they cannot say no if their husbands want sex, according to the health survey.

Under India's inherited British-era penal code, an exception clause stated that "sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not rape".