The Reverend David Burke of Orchard Road Presbyterian Church has kindly consented to us quoting him in the FAQ section of the website, in response to question 18: “Is it possible there are religious grounds for this marital rape exemption?” Our warm thanks to the Reverend Mr Burke for sharing his views.
Archive for July, 2009
No To Rape makes the papers
Monday, July 20th, 2009
By now, you may have seen that No To Rape made it into the papers over the weekend, helping to bring the message about marital rape to even more Singaporeans and permanent residents. Thank you, signatories and supporters, for making the campaign a news item!
Coverage we’ve received has included:
Sunday Times, 19 Jul 2009: “Campaign against marital rape picks up steam”
联合晚报 (Lianhe Wanbao), 19 Jul 2009: 千人上网请愿夫强暴妻应治罪
my paper, 20 Jul 2009: “Volunteers aim to protect women against marital rape”
Let’s keep those signatures coming!
Catherine Lim supports No To Rape
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
Writer Catherine Lim has kindly expressed her support of No To Rape, together with the following message:
It seems very strange to me that in this day and age when women’s rights to be protected against violence are universally recognised and supported, that there can be any legal code that in effect permits the violation of her body with all that implies of physical, mental and emotional suffering, so long as the perpetrator is her own husband! Logically and morally, such a code is not defensible.
Site update: volunteering, articles and blogs
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
We’ve made a number of changes to the Promote section of the site:
Volunteer: Would you like to volunteer for No To Rape and help abolish marital immunity for rape? We’ve uploaded a Volunteering Form which you should download and return to us by email.
Articles: More news articles on marital rape are available in the right-hand column.
Blogs: We’ve updated the list of blogs that link to us. Thank you all for your support! Honourable mentions to Headspace for some really interesting excerpts from an academic article on marital rape, and Mathia Lee for the lively discussion in the comments.
More voices from the petition
Friday, July 17th, 2009
Hot on the heels of the last blog post, more signatures have appeared that need to be highlighted. The President of AWARE, Dana Lam, leaves a hard-hitting statement on the petition:
Men and women should stop raising boys as boys and start raising boys to reach for their full potential as creative, intelligent, compassionate people -same as how we should start raising girls. Rape is the violent cover up for men’s inadequacies. Get a life.
A message from a rape survivor, testifying yet again to the devastating impact of sexual violence:
I am a survivor of rape and sexual abuse. This occurance has disrupted my life beyond words. act with courage and wisdom
This signatory, too, speaks of the long-term suffering that rape inflicts:
Rape victims suffer a long time after the act has been committed. I should know. I was a victim myself. You never forget and never fully recover. No one should have to go through what countless other women have gone through.
Can we, as a society, really accept a Penal Code that states that inflicting these wounds is acceptable, as long as the perpetrator can produce a marriage registration? Can you?
United voices
Friday, July 17th, 2009
No To Rape has now hit 1,000 signatures. Please keep up the good work of spreading the word!
Many signatures are accompanied by thoughtful and sometimes deeply personal comments. These messages unite voices from a range of perspectives and experiences, which together serve as a powerful testament to why the law must be changed to offer full protection from, and unqualified censure of, marital rape.
For example, consider the words accompanying the signature of former NMP and former President of AWARE Braema Mathi:
Often protecting persons in relationships is the most difficult task. Women prefer the silence to talking about being sexually assaulted by a husband, boyfriend, long-term partner. Having a law in place reassures women that they are not alone, they can talk about it, they can put an end to it, they can start the process of reclaiming themselves. This work by the organisers is yet another step to help women in Singapore get the protection they need under such circumstances.
This incisive account of how disempowered sexual violence can leave victims is borne out by another comment from someone who has experienced rape:
I was a rape victim. And rape is just something I feel NO woman should ever live with. Especially when the men aren’t penalised for that at all. It’s a scar that stays on with the victims for life. And why do women have to bear the dire consequences as a result of ignorant men’s reckless acts? Let’s all say no to rape.
This is the reality No To Rape and its supporters are working to address. Help us.
Constance Singam endorses No to Rape
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
Constance Singam needs no introduction in the world of civil society. As a former President of AWARE, former President of the Singapore Council of Women’s Organisations, and key member of Transient Workers Count Too, amongst many other things, she has long worked hard for women’s welfare and the protection of the vulnerable. We are very pleased to announce her personal endorsement of the No To Rape campaign. Here is her message of support:
“Rape is rape.
Rape is rape, regardless of the relationship between the rapist and the victim. The rapist can be a total stranger or someone you know or someone you are married to.
Marital rape is the worst kind of violation of a most trusting, intimate and cherished relationship between a man and a woman.
Marital Rape should therefore be criminalized.”
Our sincere thanks to Constance Singam for these strong words against sexual violence in any guise.
Campaign Action: write to your MP
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
As No To Rape enters its third week, more than 800 people have signed the petition to show their support for the abolition of marital immunity for rape. With your help in spreading the message, that number continues to grow.
But there is even more we can do to create change. Every two weeks, we’ll post a Campaign Action you can take to be even more effective at promoting the No To Rape message.
The current No To Rape Campaign Action is:
Write to your MP: Please write directly to your Member of Parliament and tell them that you think forced sex should always be treated as rape.
Confused about how to do this? Check out the Promote section of the site. You’ll find a link to the Parliament website, where you can get snail mail or email details for your MP by entering your street name.
You can also access our Model Letter to an MP – feel free to use this as it is, or as a source of ideas. Your letter will probably have more impact if it is in your own words.
The more letters MPs receive, from as many different people as possible, the clearer it will be to them that Singaporeans and PRs do not support marital immunity for rape.
Please let us know at NoToRape@gmail.com if you receive any responses from your MP. The more knowledge we share, the more effectively we can work.
Thank you once again for your stand against sexual violence.
Site update: thank you
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
We’ve updated the About section of the site to include credits for many of the individual volunteers who have worked on No To Rape in some form or another. Thank you to everyone for the hard work and thoughtful contributions. The list is not exhaustive as many more people have given, and continue to give, to the campaign, but we hope it goes some way to acknowledging the efforts of those who have brought this movement from concept to reality.
Some good blog posts
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
We’re really delighted to see that people have been blogging in support of No To Rape. We’ve tried to maintain a list of links to blogs and websites that have supported our call for the abolition of marital immunity for rape, but updating it takes some time, so if we haven’t included you yet, please know that we are very grateful to you too! If you would like to draw our attention to your blog do email us.
We’d like to highlight a few posts that particularly struck us. From Yu-Kym:
You might not be able to identify a victim at all. Victims would usually endure such treatment for a period of time before telling anyone. It is humiliating enough getting raped by a stranger or a dinner-date, let alone by one’s own husband. Victims also tend to blame themselves. It certainly doesn’t help that there are judgmental people around would blame the woman for not performing her “wifely duties” in the first place. How about the “husbandly duty” of loving his wife? In my posts [Rough Sex], it took me 7 years to come up with the courage to say that I was almost date-raped. Scroll down to the 3rd comment and you will see someone’s judgment on what happened.
Once, I was also physically held against my will (not raped) after an argument. I had been in a relationship with the guy for many years so I was shocked when it happened for the first time. Did I ever think he would use physical force against me? No. I didn’t even tell my parents about the incident because I didn’t know what to say.
What I have experienced and feel doesn’t even come close to what a wife raped by her husband has. What I’m saying is: anyone might be a victim, including the woman behind the cash register, your colleague, your cousin, your sister or even you. No man should be given the right to do as he pleases with a woman regardless of her relationship to him.
For those reluctant to provide their IC number and name when signing the petition, Yu-Kym also makes the point that these are details we give out all the time, to enter into lucky draws or get free gifts at shopping centres – so please do enter them with your signature. We need these details to keep the petition credible, since they ensure this is being signed by real people. No To Rape is not seeking to make money from you and will not reveal these details to the public against your wishes.
Laicite makes insightful observations on the historical norms supporting marital immunity for rape:
[Under Deuteronomy in the Bible] if a man rapes an unbetrothed virgin, he must pay her father 50 shekels of silver and then marry her. From here we see that rape is not a crime against the woman, it is a crime against her father, because he is the one who owns her and her virginity.
Though the examples I mentioned were from the bible, this misogynistic notion of women as property is by no means limited to religion. Confucian and African cultures also have practices involving virginity testing and proof of “deflowering” on the wedding night, where if it were discovered that the bride were not a virgin, her family would face considerable shame and the marriage could even be annulled. Under Anglo-Saxon law, rape law was a form of property law, whereby the rapist was punished by having to make compensation to the victim’s husband or her father, depending on who exercised ownership over her. In effect, rape was treated as an act of trespass on a woman’s body, which was male property.
Today, such reasoning is not only archaic, it is simply sexist and offensive. Yet we still see similar cases made for the promotion of chastity until marriage, where the woman’s body and virginity is “reserved” for her future husband and rightful owner.
But as long as we respect that women are people too, with the freedom to make their own choices, we cannot dictate one way or another whether and when a woman should have sex.
There’s also been an interesting discussion at Holly Jean. And Tinker, Tailor has written a short but powerful piece.
Endorsed By
