While the proliferation of domestic violence legislation worldwide is a positive and much-needed development, the explicit criminalisation of marital rape needs to be central to these legal reform initiatives - ensuring that women’s rights are fully protected. Even within marriage.
A landmark decision by the High Court in Kenya found that police inaction in dealing with rape cases brought by 160 girls had created a climate of impunity for defilement, which rendered the State indirectly responsible for the harms inflicted on the girls by their rapists
