Brief by Shorts91 Newsdesk / 12:51pm on 18 Dec 2023,Monday India
"A rape is a rape, even when it is committed by a man on his wife," the Gujarat High Court observed, stating that the silence around sexual violence against women in India needs to be broken. Justice Divyesh Joshi said actual incidents of such violence are "probably much higher" than what data shows, and women face hostility and violence in the environments they inhabit. He slammed social attitudes that trivialize and even romanticize stalking, assault, and harassment as "minor," saying they have a "lasting and pernicious effect on the survivors." The court made the observations while denying bail to a woman accused of subjecting her daughter-in-law to cruelty while her husband and son raped and filmed her. "A man is a man; an act is an act; rape is a rape, be it performed by a man, the 'husband', on the woman, 'wife'," it stated.
