Child bride sex will be treated as rape, rules Indian court

INDIA’S top court yesterday ruled that a man is committing rape if he has sex with his wife who is under the age of 18, a landmark decision that will affect millions of child bride marriages.

The legal age of consent is 18. The law regards even consensual sex with a woman under 16 as rape, but an exception had been made for intercourse between a man and his wife who is aged 16 or 17.

Marital rape is not a crime in India as the government has said criminalising that could destabilise marriages and make men vulnerable to harassment by their wives.

The supreme court ruled the age of consent was 18 for “all purposes” after receiving a petition organised by Independent Thought, a non-profit group that sought to criminalise sex with under-age wives.

“Sexual intercourse by a man with their minor wife below 18 years is rape,” the court said in its judgment, welcomed by women’s rights campaigners.

“I am very happy with the supreme court judgment,” said Vikram Srivastava, an Independent Thought lawyer.

Although illegal, child marriage is deeply rooted in India. Factors such as poverty, weak law enforcement, patriarchal social norms and concerns about family honour are often blamed.

Marriages are considered to involve a child if the woman is below 18 or the man younger than 21. Men both above and below the legal age may marry child brides.

India’s 2011 census showed child marriage had declined marginally from a decade earlier, but more than five million girls were still married before the age of 18.

More than a quarter of Indian women from 20 to 24 said they were married before 18, and a fifth of men aged from 25 to 29 said they married below the legal age, said a charity, the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights and Young Lives, in a report analysing the census data.