Palestine and other Middle Eastern Countries Changing Their Outlook: Marry-Your-Rapist Laws Repealed and Reformed

By: Wesam Shahed

Marry Your Rapist laws are often described as laws that exonerate a man from being criminally punished for rape or similar acts as long as the man marries the women.[1] There are different versions of these laws on how a rapist can escape being criminally charged such as if the victim forgives the rapist, financial settlement, or marry into the family.[2] Many find these laws act as loopholes for men to escape legal punishment.[3] These types of laws are or have been found in some Middle Eastern, European, Asian, Central American, and African countries. At least in the Middle East and Africa, a lot of people are unaware that these laws have colonial origin, “inspired by the French Napoleonic Code of 1810, which allowed a man who kidnapped a girl to escape prosecution if he married her.”[4]

Today, advocates for these laws tend to argue cultural value behind a female’s virginity at marriage, and if a female loses her virginity before marriage, it could dishonor her or the family.[5] For example, in Jordan the average of reported rape cases was 147, but experts declare that the real number is greater because most victims do not report “the crime for fear they’ll be shunned by society or murdered by a family member in a so-called honor killing.”[6]

Recently there have been many activists protesting these laws and calling for their abolishment, with organizations like the Human Rights Watch and United Nations Human Rights High Commission to grassroots movements in specific countries.[7] Specifically, the United Nations has also stated that “ these types of laws “could lead to the increased confidence of rapists without fear of punishment and consequences to their crimes.”[8] The United Nations has further warned that these types of laws “would generate a landscape of impunity for child abuse and leave victims vulnerable to experiencing additional mistreatment and distress from their assailants.”[9] For example, in Morocco after a young woman committed suicide when she was forced to marry her rapist, protests erupted to end these laws.[10]

In response to the growing activism, in 2018, Palestine recently repealed its “Marry Your Rapist law, no longer allowing this type of loophole to exist.[11] In 2017, Middle Eastern countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, and Tunisia abolished their own versions of these type of rape laws.[12] Furthermore, Egypt was the first Middle Eastern country to repeal the law in 1999.[13] However, despite these successes, some feel as though “that families may still coerce women and girls who become pregnant to marry the men because of barriers to getting birth certificates for children born out of wedlock and the criminalization of abortion.”[14] Countries like Mayalysia and Egypt, where Marry Your Rapist laws no longer exist, these practices are still prevalent within local communities.[15] To avoid family shame or dishonor, some families in local communities prefer no law enforcement to get involved and “[l]aw enforcement or authorities are not going to implement the law if they see that the family wants the girl and the rapist to be married.”[16]

Additionally, even today countries like Turkey are attempting to pass bills to implement these types of law.[17] In this particular circumstance it is unknown whether the bill will pass, let alone proceed forward because in 2016 the “Turkish government proposed a similar bill, but was withdrawn after it sparked worldwide outrage.”[18]

As of today, there are still some countries in the world that have these types of laws in place, but hopefully with the continued activism these countries will repeal or reform their laws.[19] Some believe that with Marry Your Rapist laws being repealed, that legislatures across the Middle East and other countries will start to change other discriminatory laws within their respective countries.[20] This sentiment holds true as “[i]n recent years, almost half of the countries and autonomous regions in the Middle East and North Africa have introduced some form of domestic violence legislation or regulation, including Algeria, Bahrain, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia.”[21] While having Marry Your Rapist laws being repealed or reformed is a great first step to ending these types of discriminatory practices, the next step is to sensitize “everyone who can play a part in combating it, from members of the public to judges, law enforcement officers and medical workers, as well as making sure that women and girls know their legal rights.”[22] With this combination of actions taking place, women will hopefully have their rights be equated to men across the world.

 #Shahed #MiddleEast #MarryYourRapist #Palestine

[1] Palestine: ‘Marry-Your-Rapist’ Law Repealed, Human Rights Watch (May. 10, 2018), https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/05/10/palestine-marry-your-rapist-law-repealed.

[2] Ruby Mellen, The Rapist’s Loophole: Marriage, Foregin Policy (Apr. 25, 2019), https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/20/decoder-the-rapists-loophole-marriage/.

[3] Elspeth Dehnert, As Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia End ‘Marry-Your-Rapist’ Laws, Where Next?, News Deeply (Aug. 22, 2017), https://web.archive.org/web/20190517222245/https:/www.newsdeeply.com/womenandgirls/articles/2017/08/22/as-lebanon-jordan-tunisia-end-marry-your-rapist-laws-where-next.

[4] Rothna Begum, Middle East on a roll to repeal 'marry the rapist' laws, Al Jazeera (Aug. 24, 2017), https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/08/middle-east-roll-repeal-marry-rapist-laws-170822095605552.html.

[5] Nora Fakim, Morocco protest against rape-marriage law, BBC News (Mar. 17, 2012), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-17416426.

[6] Dehnert, supra note 3.

[7] Lebanon: Reform Rape Laws, HumanRights Watch (Dec. 19, 2016), https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/12/19/lebanon-reform-rape-laws.

[8] Turkey to debate new ‘marry your rapist’ law in parliament, Middle East Monitor (Jan. 23, 2020), https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200123-turkey-to-debate-new-marry-your-rapist-law-in-parliament/.

[9] Harut Sassounian, Men Who Rape and Marry Girls Under 18 Could be Pardoned in Turkey, The Armenian Weekly (Jan. 28, 2020), https://armenianweekly.com/2020/01/28/men-who-rape-and-marry-girls-under-18-could-be-pardoned-in-turkey/.

[10] Fakim, supra note 5.

[11] Human Rights Watch, supra note 1.

[12] Fakim, supra note 3.

[13] Equality Now, Not Backing Down Against 'Marry-Your-Rapist' Laws, (Aug. 17, 2017), https://www.equalitynow.org/not_backing_down_against_marry_your_rapist_laws?locale=fr.

[14] Human Rights Watch, supra note 1.

[15] Dehnert, supra note 3.

[16] Id. https://web.archive.org/web/20190517222245/https://www.newsdeeply.com/womenandgirls/articles/2017/08/22/as-lebanon-jordan-tunisia-end-marry-your-rapist-laws-where-next

[17] Sara Tor, Turkey’s ‘marry your rapist’ law has taken women’s rights right back to the 1950s, Independent (Jan. 23, 2020), https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/turkey-marry-your-rapist-bill-law-statutory-rape-a9298906.html.

[18] Chris Dyer, 'Marry your rapist' law which allows men who have sex with girls under 18 to avoid punishment if they marry their victims will be considered by Turkish MPs, Daily Mail (Jan. 23, 2020), https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7920157/Marry-rapist-allows-abusers-avoid-punishment-law-debated-Turkish-MPs.html.

[19] Human Rights Watch, supra note 1.

[20] Equality Now, supra note 13.

[21] Human Rights Watch, supra note 1.

[22] Dehnert, supra note 3.