Recognise marital rape

Apropos, ‘Marital rape: The State must protect women’ (May 14), the National Family Health Survey has found that when women are subject to sexual violence, husbands are the perpetrators in 82% of the cases. Yet 99.1% of sexual violence goes unreported when the perpetrator is the husband. In March, the Karnataka high court had denied a husband protection, saying, “Marriage is not a license to unleash a brutal beast.” It is time to remove the patriarchal cloak that protects one class of rapists. The state must protect women against domestic violence which remains invisible. Usha Verma

Chandigarh