At Vote: Marital Rape Justice Act[Archived] [Complete]

mcmasterdonia

mcmasterdonia

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Marital Rape Justice Act
A resolution to restrict civil freedoms in the interest of moral decency.


Category: Moral Decency

Strength: Mild

Proposed by: Christian Democrats

Description: The General Assembly,

Recognizing that domestic violence continues to be a problem in many of its member states,

Expressing its strong opposition to all acts of sexual violence,

Realizing that many societies countenance domestic violence, namely marital rape, because of primitive beliefs that treat people as if they were the property of their spouses or because of archaic views that wrongly consider consent to marriage or consent to a relationship to be consent to sexual intercourse whenever it is desired by the partner,

Further realizing that many member states lack laws against marital rape, do not enforce laws against marital rape, or have laws against marital rape that are less severe than laws against other kinds of rape,

Seeking to ensure that its member states treat accusations and acts of marital rape just as severely as they treat other accusations and acts of rape occurring outside of committed relationships,

1. Defines marital rape, as used in this resolution, as an act of sexual assault or sexual abuse that is committed against an individual by a spouse, civil partner, domestic partner, registered partner, cohabitant, or someone who formerly had such a relationship with the individual;

2. Mandates that accusations of marital rape be treated by law enforcement the same as or more carefully than similar accusations of nonmarital rape, especially because survivors of marital rape usually live with their attackers;

3. Requires that member states and political subdivisions thereof, in their laws on sexual assault and sexual abuse, eliminate all legal distinctions between marital rapes and nonmarital rapes occurring under otherwise identical circumstances;

4. Prohibits discrimination between marital and nonmarital rapes in the application of sexual assault and sexual abuse laws, namely with regard to the punishment of individuals who commit the crime of rape;

5. Decrees that consent to marriage, civil union, civil partnership, domestic partnership, registered partnership, or cohabitation shall never be considered consent to sexual activity under any circumstances; and

6. Encourages member states to take sufficient steps, such as the establishment of public awareness or special counseling programs, to reduce the number of instances of marital rape in the country.
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Not voting here. But I thought I'd offer my opinions as to why I oppose this measure.

Since it's a Moral Decency resolution(which reduce rights), it is recognizing an implicit right to rape spouses, and reducing said right. Most opposition to this resolution will be on that point. Spouses shouldn't have an implicit right to rape spouses, and this should be a Human Rights resolution(which increases rights) because it should give a right to spouses to not be raped.

It can also be argued that this resolution is not an international issue. Not all nations even consist of consenting adults, and consent may be significantly more complicated with regards to certain nations.

Furthermore, this resolution fails to actually criminalize rape itself. It merely holds marital rape to the same standards as non-marital rape. If non-marital rape has no penalty, then neither does marital rape, even if this passes.

It also fails to address the incredibly difficulties in proving marital rape. While this resolution removes all distinctions officially from the two types of rape, this resolution fails to address basic common sense issues in procedure of prosecution. While it removes the concept of "implied consent" from the equation, it does so without regard for the process it intends to affect.

Accusations of rape from one spouse to another are incredibly difficult to prosecute, because in a marriage sexual relations are known to happen. Rather than proving that the sexual relations happened(as is generally the case of non-marital rape), the burden of proof is on if the accuser consented or not.

For this reason, outside other factors, marital rape is rarely successfully prosecuted. There are only two witnesses generally to the situation, and those two witnesses support their own version of events. This resolution does not, and likely cannot address this very basic fact. For that reason it's clear that localities and nations would do a much better job of stopping marital rape.
 
Treize_Dreizehn:
Since it's a Moral Decency resolution(which reduce rights), it is recognizing an implicit right to rape spouses, and reducing said right. Most opposition to this resolution will be on that point. Spouses shouldn't have an implicit right to rape spouses, and this should be a Human Rights resolution(which increases rights) because it should give a right to spouses to not be raped.
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While I don't agree with the entirety of Douria's argument, the above paragraph is my primary reason for opposing this proposal. Christian Democrats could easily have rewritten this proposal as a Human Rights proposal and refused to do so. He is well known for using resolutions to advance his religious ideological agenda and I doubt this case is any different. He insists on a Moral Decency proposal because that category advances his agenda while Human Rights proposals are usually detrimental to his agenda. I would also note that by opting for a Moral Decency category and implicitly recognizing marital rape as a right to be curtailed he is giving the marriage contract more weight in international law than it deserves, which could advance his agenda later on any number of marriage-related proposals.
 
The General Assembly resolution Marital Rape Justice Act was passed 9,741 votes to 2,246, and implemented in all WA member nations.
 
Voting on this resolution has ended.

Thanks to those nations who cast their votes. Your participation is a great help to the region.

This topic has been locked and sent to the Archives for safekeeping. If you would like this topic to be re-opened for further discussion, please contact the WA Delegate, a Global Moderator, or an Administrator for assistance. Thank you.
 
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