Marital rape: India anger as judge frees man accused of raping wife who then died

The controversial ruling once again shines a spotlight on the issue of marital rape in India, which refuses to criminalise it.

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An Indian court's ruling that a man's forced "unnatural sex" with his wife is not an offence has led to huge outrage and sparked renewed calls for better protections for married women.

The controversial order has also brought back into the spotlight the issue of marital rape in a country which has stubbornly refused to criminalise it.

Earlier this week, a high court judge in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh set free a 40-year-old man who was convicted by a trial court in 2019 of rape and unnatural sex with his wife, who died within hours of the alleged assault.

The lower court had also found the man guilty of "culpable homicide not amounting to murder". He was sentenced to "rigorous imprisonment for 10 years" on each count, with all the sentences to run concurrently.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm29drxjlxmo

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