Marital rape issue not being faced - victims' group

An organisation for victims of rape has said that Ireland is not ready to face up to issue of marital rape. The Rape Crisis Network issued its statement after a man was convicted in court this week.

On Wednesday a Central Criminal Court jury found a Sligo man guilty of raping his wife just weeks after the birth of their child. Mr Justice Paul Carney remanded him in custody for sentence on January 30th and noted it was the third conviction recorded against him for this offence. He also declared him a sex offender and directed the preparation of a victim impact report.

The Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI), the national forum for rape crisis centres, welcomed the conviction and said that most sexual violence in Ireland is not perpetrated by members of the clergy or within religious institutions but is perpetrated within the institution of the family.

The organisation pointed out that up to 22 per cent of sexual violence on adult women is perpetrated by a partner or ex-partner.

Fiona Neary, executive director of the RCNI, said that it may be much easier for Irish people to focus on institutions such as the church than to examine the institution of the family.

"Ireland, regrettably, continues to be a country where initial consent to sexual relations is understood to imply continued consent. To understand rape it must be understood that consent for sex is something that is continually renegotiated and can never be taken as a given," she said. "Continued ambiguity about this point means very few women who have been raped within marriages feel they will be believed or feel they have any hope of justice in Irish courts."

Kate Mulkerrins, legal policy co-ordinator of the RCNI, said that Ireland just was not ready to hear about marital rape. "This is to our great shame and must be faced up to now as a matter of urgency," she said. "Public attitudes are crucial in preventing, overcoming and punishing this crime. Without a climate of understanding, the law in Ireland it seems is powerless."

At the trial on Wednesday the 39-year-old victim told the jury her then husband had raped her on July 21st, 1997, at their Sligo home after she had told him clearly she didn't want to have sexual intercourse at that time because she was still recovering from childbirth.