The question of marital rape continues to be a controversial subject in Uganda. It is perpetuated by the patriarchal notions, cultural and religious dictates that portray ‘a good wife’ as one who submits to her husband’s needs and never protests his demands in any way. The Ugandan government has undertaken commendable strides in not only ratifying various global, regional and sub-regional treaties that guarantee the rights of women against discrimination and violence, but also in enacting progressive domestic laws that seek to protect spouses even in the domestic sphere. In spite of this, violations of women’s rights in many forms, including marital rape, persist. The strong advocacy from mainly the women’s movement for the proposed inclusion of the offence of marital rape in Uganda’s legislation has since fallen on deaf ears. This is partly attributed to the African values where wives are considered property and that husbands are entitled to sex at any time. To date, there is no specific statutory law or even provision within the Penal Code Act cap 120 (amended) that criminalises marital rape in Uganda, yet the vice persists unabated. This chapter seeks to analyse the existing jurisprudence on marital rape in Uganda and advocate for the enactment of the law against marital rape to be expressly included in the Penal laws of the country.
CITATION STYLE
P’Odong, P. A., & Can, B. L. (2022). Combating Marital Rape: The Law and the Criminal Justice System in Uganda. In Sustainable Development Goals Series (Vol. Part F2684, pp. 109–137). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75953-7_5
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