'Marry-Your-Rapist' By Somini Sengupta Summary

This 2017 article “One by One, Marry-Your-Rapist Laws Are Falling in the Middle East” by Somini Sengupta was published in The New York Times New on July 22nd, 2017. Sengupta writes about rape in the Middle East and how legislation in those countries fails to ensure the safety of rape victims. She also sheds light on the cultural pressure on rape victims in the Middle East. The article was most likely intended for well-educated Americans interested in the rape culture of other countries, and was written to help raise awareness of how some cultures have what other cultures might view as immoral viewpoints concerning rape. The article follows the gradual repeal of the “Marry-Your-Rapist” law, which states that if a person convicted of rape marries the victim of the incident for at least three years, then they are able to evade prosecution. Sengupta exposes the consequences of this law, providing two separate stories of rape victims who ended up dead because of this policy. She also mentions that this loophole is present in countries other than the Arab territories, stating, “the Philippines, a predominantly Catholic country, still has a marry-your-rapist loophole . . . Until 2006, so did Uruguay, and until 1994, so did France . . . And in Turkey, the government proposed last November

In both of the stories presented in the article, there is pressure from both family and community to marry the rapist: post-rape, Basma Mohamad Latifa’s village “advised the family to negotiate a marriage contract with the man,” and Amiana Filali’s father said that “a state prosecutor had urged the accused to marry her in return for the charges to be dropped.” In fact, Sengupta asserts that “The laws were built around patriarchal attitudes that link a family’s honor directly to a woman’s chastity,” reflecting the idea that women in this community have little to no say in what happens to them