The deep inequalities that women in India suffer after and the cases of violence that have seen the light of day in recent years, shocking the world public opinion, comes to confirm yet another court decision against the victim in a case of marital rape.

The court dismissed a woman’s complaint that her husband forced her into “unnatural sexual activity” because under Indian law it is not illegal for a husband to force his wife to engage in sexual acts.

The judgment, delivered in the Madhya Pradesh High Court last week, sheds light on a legal loophole in India that does not criminalize marital rape by a husband against his wife if she is over 18 years of age.

Women’s rights groups have been trying to change the law for years, but they are up against conservatives who argue that state intervention could destroy India’s marriage tradition.

A challenge to the law has made its way through the country’s courtrooms, with the Delhi High Court issuing a divisive verdict on the issue in 2022, prompting lawyers to file an appeal with the country’s Supreme Court that is still pending.

According to the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s ruling, the woman told police her husband came to her home in 2019, soon after their marriage, and forced her to have “unnatural sex,” under section 377 of her penal code. of India.

The offense includes non-consensual “carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal” and was historically used to prosecute same-sex couples who had consensual sex, before the Supreme Court decriminalized homosexuality in 2018

According to court documents, the woman claimed the act happened “on multiple occasions” and that her husband had threatened to divorce her if she told anyone. She eventually sued after telling her mother, who encouraged her to file a lawsuit in 2022, the court heard.

The husband disputed his wife’s complaint in court, with his lawyer claiming that any “unnatural sex” between the pair was not criminal as they are married.

In issuing his ruling, Justice Gurpal Singh Ahluwalia pointed to India’s spousal rape exception, which does not make it a crime for a man to force his wife to have sex, a law left over from British rule more than 70 years after independence .