SACRED BONDS, SILENT PAIN- THE GRUESOME REALITY OF MARITAL RAPE

Mahtab Bashir
mahtabbashir@gmail.com
0333 53 63 248
ISLAMABAD

In the early hours of July 22, in a dimly lit room of Karachi’s Civil Hospital, a 19-year-old girl breathed her last. Her body—torn by brutality, her spirit crushed long before death—was the final proof of a crime that many in this country still refuse to acknowledge: marital rape. Her story, one of countless others buried in silence, forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth—that within the sacred institution of marriage, barbarism often finds shelter behind tradition, law, and society’s willful ignorance.

The young girl from Lyari, married on June 15, was subjected to unspeakable violence by the man who vowed to protect her. Her husband sodomised her and assaulted her with a metal pipe. Her health deteriorated rapidly, and she slipped into a coma. For weeks, she battled for life in hospitals—her body a battleground of internal injuries and trauma. She lost the fight. But this nation—its lawmakers, courts, and collective conscience—must not lose the opportunity to listen, to act, and to change.

Marital Rape: An Oxymoron or an Evil? 

Across the world, rape is recognized as a crime that shreds human dignity. And yet, Pakistan remains among the nations where marital rape is not a crime, a dark stain on the country’s already fragile human rights record. Rooted in colonial-era laws and deepened by patriarchal mindsets, Pakistani statutes continue to uphold a twisted notion: that marriage equals irrevocable consent. In essence, a husband’s access to his wife’s body is assumed permanent, unquestionable—even when it's violent, coercive, or life-threatening.

This is not just a legal loophole. It is an institutional betrayal. The Constitution of Pakistan guarantees the right to dignity under Article 14, yet our laws carve out an exception when the assailant wears a wedding ring. How can we, as a society, claim to protect women when the very law of the land shields their rapists within marriage?

Let us be clear: marital rape is rape. No semantics, no cultural justifications, no religious misinterpretations can alter that fact. It is a form of sexual violence—often more insidious than stranger rape—because it comes cloaked in the guise of love and legal obligation. The home, instead of being a sanctuary, becomes a prison where suffering is locked behind closed doors and muffled by shame.

The brutality inflicted on the Lyari victim is not an isolated incident. Every month, hospitals across Pakistan admit women with injuries consistent with sexual assault—many inflicted by their spouses. A rare judgement in Gujranwala this April sentenced a husband to 10 years in prison for an unnatural offence against his wife. But such rulings are exceptions, not the norm. Most cases are never reported. Victims fear disbelief, dishonour, or worse—legal inaction.

Video Courtesy Geo.tv

The irony is sharp: Pakistan has passed anti-rape legislation with stringent punishments, yet continues to exclude marital rape from its scope. Even when the victim is left bleeding, in coma, or dead, the law hesitates to call the crime by its name.

We demand that this silence be shattered.

Pakistan must urgently amend its penal code to criminalize marital rape—unequivocally, without conditions. Any act of non-consensual sexual activity, regardless of marital status, must be punishable by law. Medical institutions must be empowered to report and examine such cases without bureaucratic delay. Police must be trained to handle them with sensitivity, not suspicion. And most importantly, society must reject the age-old lie that marriage is a license to violate.

The young girl from Lyari didn’t just die from physical trauma. She was killed by a culture that treats wives as property, a justice system that moves too slowly, and a society that refuses to look evil in the eye if it wears the mask of marriage.

Let her death not be another fleeting headline.
Let it be a turning point.
Let us no longer be a country where the sacred bond of marriage becomes a license for pain.
Let us speak, legislate, and act—before another bride bleeds silently into her grave.