Amina Filali had 15 years when she told her parents that they had raped her.
The family, “following the advice of a judicial official,” according to the minor’s father, forced her to marry her rapist, a man of about 25 years.
Months later, after reporting beatings and assaults, the adolescent committed suicide with 16 years taking rat poison.
Amina died in 2012 in a small town in Morocco and his case symbolic sparked protests and campaigns by women’s groups nationwide.
The Moroccan Parliament finally repealed in 2014 the law that allowed a viol or to evade justice if he married his victim.
But laws of the same type are still a reality in several parts of the world, incl uida Latin America , according to the recent report by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), entitled “My body belongs to me.”
The report indicates that almost half of the women in 57 developing countries do not have autonomy over their bodies, and are denied the The right to decide if they want to have sex, use contraception or seek health care.
This “should outrage us all,” said UNFPA Executive Director Natalia Kanem. “In essence, hundreds of millions of women and girls do not own their own bodies. Their lives are ruled by others. ”
Rape and The laws that forgive the rapist are just two examples of a long catalog of violations that also includes cases such as genital mutilation or virginity tests.
And even in countries that repealed norms that exonerate the rapist If you marry your victim, other still legal practices may end up having the same result.
Which countries have these laws internationally?
The UN report cites as one of its sources the reports of the Washington-based international NGO “Equality Now”.
In your report of 2017, Equality Now highlighted numerous examples of countries in the Middle East and North Africa where a rapist can evade justice through marriage: Ira k , Bahrain, Libya,Kuwait , Palestinian territories, Tunisia, Jordan and Lebanon.
“After our report and other campaigns, Tunisia, Jordan and Lebanon eliminated these laws in 2017, Y Palestine did the same in 2018 ”, Bárbara Jiménez, a lawyer specialized in women’s rights and representative of Equality Now for Latin America, told BBC Mundo.
Other examples cited in the UN report are Angola, Algeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Syria and Tajikistan .
Victims married to their rapists are trapped in unions that expose them to possible rapes and other assaults for life.
“On many occasions these laws exist because what is being tried to ‘protect’ here is the honor of the family, the name, the honor of the victim ”, added Jiménez.
The“ dishonor ”for the loss of virginity is seen by families as an evil greater than the integrity of their daughters.
These norms also existed in Europe. Italy, for example, removed them in 1884 and France in 1994.
What is the situation in Latin America ?
Most of the countries in the region repealed the articles in their criminal codes that allowed a rapist to evade justice by marrying his victim.
But these legal changes are relatively, and incredibly, recent. These standards were eliminated, for example in Uruguay in 2005, in Costa Rica in 2007 and in Bolivia in 2013.
Y Two countries in the region, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, still have articles in their criminal codes that allow the perpetrator of a violation to escape his sentence by contracting marriage.
The case of Venezuela
The Venezuelan Penal Code states in its article 393: “The guilty party of any of the crimes set forth in the articles 374, 375, 376, 378, 387, 388 Y 389 will be exempt from penalty if before the sentence he marries the offended person, and the trial will cease at all in everything that is related to the penalty corresponding to these punishable acts. If the marriage takes place after the conviction, then the execution of the penalties and their criminal consequences will cease, “lawyers specialized in women’s rights explained to Vanessa Blanco, representative in Venezuela of” Jovenas Latidas “, a Latin American movement that fights for the rights of girls and women.
“This article is in force in the current Penal Code. The articles 356, 375 Y 376 talk about rape. ”
Blanco noted that from 2007, when the Violence Law (on the rights of women to a life free of violence) came into force, to be applied in the case of rapes of women this new norm, which does not foresee the possibility of a rapist being exempt from punishment if he marries his victim.
“However, when the Code was amended Penalty in 2005, item was not removed 393 ”, she added.
One of the lawyers explained that “ even when this is in disuse it does not cease to be in force “.
“I have ever seen that it happens that there are judges who apply this exception if the woman victim of the rape decides to marry the aggressor as a way to obtain the exemption of responsibility that is foreseen in that ordinal. ”
“ As long as it is a norm current may be that a judge applies it . Perhaps a prosecutor requests a review and decides not to do so, but it is something possible. ”
The case of the Dominican Republic
“The Criminal Code in force in the Dominican Republic since 1884 has a standard (article 356) in which the sexual aggressor of a minor is released from criminal prosecution -even if it is an incest-, if he marries with her “, explained to BBC Mundo the Dominican lawyer Patricia M. Santana Nina, specialist in Constitutional Law with Gender and Violence Studies.
” In other words, the crime is forgiven if the aggressor is home with the victim. This provision was implicitly repealed recently, in January 2021, through Law No. 1 – 21 which absolutely prohibits marriage to persons under the age of 18 years. However, a draft Penal Code is currently being debated in the country, which would completely repeal the text of the Penal Code. ”
Santana Nina pointed out that the law that pardons the sexual offender if he is house with a minor “ it was applied and very frequently “.
“It is a harmful cultural practice against which we still fight, because although child marriage was prohibited, early unions continue. ”
In the lawyer’s opinion, the Dominican Republic should still be included in the list of countries that allow the exoneration of a rapist if he marries his victim, “because the norm is still in force. A ‘genius interpreter’ can always appear to interpret the law to favor the aggressor “.
For Santana Nina,” this type of norm translates into a form of violence against women and girls that comes directly from the Dominican State, which, in our society, perpetuates and deepens discrimination and their condition of extreme poverty. ”
“ It translates into a condemnation to live, in addition, in the midst of gender violence circles and exposes them to child and forced pregnancy (since, in this country, abortion is criminalized without exceptions). ”
Child marriages
Even in countries that no longer have regulations that exonerate the rapist in case of marriage, other practices can have a similar effect, according to Bárbara Jiménez.
Several countries in Latin America allow the marriage of a minor before the 18 years if c with the authorization of the father or mother, the guardian or the judicial authority.
“These laws that still have these exceptions what they allow is that if a family authorizes a girl to marry a man that he may have been a sexual aggressor, that aggressor will evade justice in the same way as if there were legislation that allowed the rapist to escape his sentence . ”
“This happens on the ground, families marry them the same, in order to preserve the honor or economic security of the adolescent, especially if she becomes pregnant”
“We have evidence of that this happens especially in rural areas and indigenous cultures. ”
Minimum ages
Jiménez cites as e Examples of countries that allow the marriage of minors under 18 with parental consent to “Cuba (minimum age 14 years), Bolivia (16 years), Brazil (16 years) and Peru (16 years). The cases are detailed in the report of 2020 “Beijing + 25 ”, Published by Equality Now 25 years after the congress from 1995 of the UN in Beijing on women’s rights.
“Even in the United States, child marriage is currently legal in 46 United States ( Delaware, New Jersey, Minnesota only and Pennsylvania have set the minimum age at 18 years and eliminated all exceptions ) ”, added the representative of Equality Now.
In federal legislation, the article 18 USC Section 2243 (a), on Sexual Abuse of a Minor, applies when a person “knowingly participates in a sexual act with another person ”Which has between 12 Y 16 years, and is at least four years younger than the perpetrator, he added.
“However, the article 18 USC Section 2243 (c) (2) allows a defense of this crime when ‘the people who participated in the sexual act were at that time married to each other ‘. This means that, at the federal level, child marriage is seen as a valid defense of legal violation “.
Child marriage, and the abuses it makes possible is a long-standing practice in many countries. Niger, for example, has the highest child marriage prevalence rate in the world (the 76% of girls marry before 18 years) ”, according to the UNFPA report.
Informal unions
The sexual offender can escape justice even when there has been no marriage.
“In the Latin American region there is the phenomenon of informal unions. This still allows those unions of girls with older people ”, Jiménez explained.
“ Girls usually go from their house to the house of the man with whom they are united, many times they go to live under the roof of the man’s family, sometimes as they understand with the only economic possibility of leaving their home. ”
In the case of Bolivia , for example, “according to a newspaper report, the union or coexistence of girls under the age of 15 years exist and it is a reality, despite the fact that under Bolivian law it is a crime for an adult to live with a girl or an adolescent ”, Patricia told BBC Mundo Brañez, representative in Bolivia of CLADEM (Committee of Latin America and the Caribbean for the Defense of Women’s Rights).
In Bolivia around 22% of adolescents joined before 18 years, and 3% before 15 years , as estimated by the Unicef report of 2015 “An approach to the situation of adolescents and young people in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
“According to the Household Survey of the 2017, at least 10. 500 women, between 12 Y 17 years, they declared that they live in concubinage. These data also show that 0, 01% of girls between 12 Y 14 years have been mothers ”, added Brañez.
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“Annihilation of the spirit”
“It is unacceptable that in 2021 in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and other countries we still have legal provisions that contain the possibility that a rapist evades justice if he marries the victim, that this happens in crimes as serious as sexual violence, “said Bárbara Jiménez to BBC Mundo.
“It is also unacceptable that in US federal law child marriage is seen as a valid defense to legal violation, and it is unacceptable that in Latin American countries marriage is allowed with exceptions under 21 years”.
“ Changing the law is the first step to eliminate crime, inequality and these harmful practices that limit the development and full autonomy of the girls and adolescents. ”
For Natalia Kanem,“ a woman who has control over her body is more likely to be empowered in other areas of her life, to prosper ”.
The denial of bodily autonomy, on the other hand, through laws that exonerate the rapist and other practices, is according to the head of UNFPA “ nothing less than an annihilation of the spirit, and must end “.
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