“Don’t laugh. That is exactly what the Justice Ministry says in its draft amendment of the law regarding rape,” Bangkok Post’s Assistant Editor Sanitsuda Ekachai wrote in her column today.
Talk about wake up call in the morning. I definitely do not need one when I woke up a few days ago. The statement by Bangkok Post’s Assistant Editor Sanitsuda Ekachai is already enough to send my eyes running wild.
Marital Rape allow in Thailand?
My eyesight must have been affected by the late night studying. I looked again. No way my eyes are playing any trick on me, it’s written in black and white on a front page newspaper (The Sun). Unbelievably as it may sound, the even permit both parties to commit such a barbaric acts. Are they out of their mind coming up with such law? Political instability must have caused some permanent damage on the mind of the Thais.
What’s next then? Making it applicable to homosexuals and transsexuals. For your information, I had nothing against gays and transvestitive because I firmly believe in human rights. All this people has the right to choose what to do with their live. The only thing which is NOT right : giving the green light to marital rape.
Marital rape is a crime, for god’s sake! Any sexual intercourse without the consent of either party is considered as rape even if you are married.
I cannot imagine Thailand tolerating with this sort of crime. According to Thai Justice Ministry, it was done for the sake of gender equality. Since all the while husbands can get away for marital rape, the wise choice now is to allow the same to the wives.What gender equality? This is full of S**T.
For century, women are subjected to this unfair treatment and abuse and now they want to extend the suffering to the men. Although some may see this as the long awaited winning battle, I personally think this is not the correct way to rectify the matter. The correct approach would be to abolish marital rape at all cost. Justice is never about payback or revenge or getting even, it’s more on establishing fairness.
I’m glad it was only a draft amendment which has yet to be implemented. Hopefully the proposal will be strike out because the consequences of enacting this law are beyond what they could forsee. All hell breaks loose if this happened…
Below is the article I extracted from The Sun :
Thai allows husbands to rape wives, vice-versa
BANGKOK (Jan 25, 2007): A husband can rape his wife and for the sake of gender equality, the Thai Justice Ministry will allow the wives to rape their husbands, too.
“Don’t laugh. That is exactly what the Justice Ministry says in its draft amendment of the law regarding rape,” Bangkok Post’s Assistant Editor Sanitsuda Ekachai wrote in her column today.
Under the Justice Ministry’s draft amendments to the rape and divorce laws which was criticised in the National Legislative Assembly last week, rape and sexual offences will be punishable with a jail term from four to 20 years and a fine of 8,000 to 40,000 bahts, unless it involves marital partners, reports Bernama today.
Sanitsuda said although the amendments would bring several improvement as to the current laws on sexual violence and divorce, continuing to endorse marital rape is totally unacceptable.
The existing law does not protect wives from rape by their husbands while homosexuals don’t have protection either as women are defined as the only victims of rape and sexual offence.
The amendment will also protect homosexuals from rape and sexual harassment.
The writer said the laws on divorce and marital compensation support men’s sexual promiscuity as it allows the husbands to use adultery as grounds for divorce but not for the wives.
“To sue for divorce, the wife must prove her husband financially supports and publicly honours another woman as wife. Proving the husband’s unfaithfulness alone will not suffice,” she said.
The draft is the ministry’s response to years of pressure from human rights groups to redress gender violence and inequality in Thai law but it ends up being farcical because of the mechanical approach to justice and its refusal to tackle the oppression of women.
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