Countries: Canada
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1

"Women in abusive marriages often do not report this aspect of their abuse to the police due to shame, fear of not being believed, and a desire to protect their husband and save their marriage. There is also the societal attitude that a marriage contract requires a wife to provide sex when her husband wants it" (para 4).

Countries: Central African Rep
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1, LRCM-PRACTICE-1

"'Physical assault within marriages is common, as well as psychological violence. Many women face financial abuse, where their husbands take the money they earn from selling goods and leave them with no resources or opportunities'" (para 8).

Countries: Cambodia
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1

"'Law enforcers and society think it is the women’s role to fulfil the sexual needs of her husband' Reni Herdiyani, vice chair of Kalyanamitra. Because of these unclear definitions of what constitutes marital rape, perpetrators mostly go unpunished or are only charged with domestic violence, because it is more culturally acceptable as a crime committed by husband to wife" (para 13).

Countries: Burundi
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1

"[M]arital rape is a persistent form of SGBV in Burundi and that there is an increase in reporting of transactional sex and sexual harassment" (2).

Countries: Burma/Myanmar
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1

"Laws that might protect women from domestic abuse and rape are weak and poorly enforced, and such violence is an acute and persistent problem" (para 9).

Countries: China
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1

"Marital rape is still legal, and women say restraining orders are rarely enforced" (para 7).

Countries: Bahamas
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1, LRCM-DATA-1

"WHILE ruling that a husband was cruel for forcing his wife to have sex against her will on numerous occasions, a Supreme Court justice has found that 'there is no rape in marriage' under Bahamian law. Justice J Denise Lewis-Johnson’s ruling was handed down on August 29 and involves a divorce case in which a woman claimed her husband would force intercourse and made her feel like a 'rape victim' throughout their marriage. The ruling will no doubt add more fuel to public discourse on the controversial issue. The case centres around a woman’s divorce petition in which she sought to end her marriage on the grounds of cruel treatment....more

Countries: Austria
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1, LRCM-DATA-1

"The defendant was accused of raping his wife, the mother of their child, and forcing her into prostitution. The prosecution also charged him with violations of the weapons law, assault, and aggravated coercion. Prosecutor Sarah Ofner accused the defendant of using a 'high degree of violence and coercion.' "The defendant shows no trace of responsibility for his actions and claims that the victim is a drug addict and wants to get rid of him with fabricated statements," the prosecutor stated" (para 2).

Countries: Australia
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1

"In addition to the challenges of disclosing violence [in cases of spousal rape], barriers to seeking support include dependencies in the relationship for daily care or income, limited access to services, negative experiences with the police and legal systems and concerns about giving evidence against family members (Backhouse and Toivonen 2018; DSS 2022). In the mixed-model Hegarty et al. 2022 study described above, almost half (48%) of the participants said they could not get help when they needed it for relationship issues or sexual assault. Service-level barriers to receiving help included not being able to understand the terms used by the service workers, availability of appointments and the cost of...more

Countries: Canada
Variables: LRW-LAW-1, LRCM-PRACTICE-1, LRCM-LAW-2

“The law criminalized as sexual assault the rape of women or men. The law defined sexual assault as an assault committed in circumstances of a sexual nature such that the sexual integrity of the victim was violated. It did not specify types or perpetrators of rape, although these would reasonably apply to spousal rape, domestic or intimate partner rape, so-called corrective rape of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex (LGBTQI+) persons, and other forms of domestic and sexual violence. The government enforced the law effectively” (12-13).

Countries: Burma/Myanmar
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1

"Rape of women and men was illegal but remained a significant problem, as the regime did not enforce the law effectively and reports emerged of sexual abuse of women in prisons by security guards... Domestic violence against women, including spousal abuse, remained a serious problem. Abuse within families was prevalent and considered socially acceptable. Spousal abuse or domestic violence was difficult to measure because the regime did not maintain comprehensive statistics and survivors typically did not report it" (para 129).

Countries: Brazil
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1

"Despite progress, the support network for women victims of violence in [Northeast Brazil] remains limited. In 2022, only 10.7% of Police Stations Specialized in Women's Assistance operated 24 hours a day" (para 32).

Countries: Botswana
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1

"The silencing of the bride and the commodification of marriage contribute directly to increased instances of marital rape and domestic violence, as husbands perceive ownership over their wives’ bodies and labor. Customary norms further discourage women from seeking judicial remedies by requiring marital disputes to be resolved first within the husband’s family, then the woman’s own family before approaching a court. The continued unrecognition of marital rape under customary law, along with the pressure to seek justice from family members instead of courts, and the stigmatization of women who resist abuse, creates a legal environment that normalizes GBV within customary law marriages. These harms are far less pronounced under constitutional...more

Countries: Botswana
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1, LRCM-PRACTICE-2

"It was also noted that the absence of or delays in reporting SGBV, including rape, incest, and defilement, could occur due to shame, stigma, attempting to maintain privacy, and/or fear of losing financial support" (para 26).

Countries: Bosnia-Herzegovina
Variables: LRCM-PRACTICE-1

"The failure of police to treat spousal rape as a serious offense inhibited the effective enforcement of the law. Women survivors of rape did not have regular access to free social support or assistance as mandated by the law, and continued to encounter prejudice, stigma, and discrimination in their communities and from representatives of public institutions" (38).