KC MODEL UNITED NATIONS 2023

UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON THE STATUS

OF WOMEN
BACKGROUND GUIDE
AGENDA
DELIBERATING UPON REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
AND HEALTH OF WOMEN WITH SPECIAL
EMPHASIS ON MARITAL RAPE

LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE BOARD

DEAR PROSPECTIVE PARTICIPANTS,
It is an honor to welcome you all to KCMUN MUN, 2023 and to the committee,
United Nations Commission on status of women. The agenda concerning the
committee for this year is “Deliberating upon reproductive rights and health of
women with special emphasis on marital rape’’. My name is Aasmi Abrol, and I
am a proud alumnus of the KC International School. I started Munning when I was
in 8th grade, JKMUN, 2016 edition being my very first. From that time to now,
there has been no looking back when it comes to conferences and conclaves. I am a
law student by profession and the world of debating has always fascinated me and
encouraged me towards creative thinking and a positive mindset. Talking about the
word feminism let me remind you all that feminism on a logical and apparent
terms means giving equal opportunities to men and women, both. However, rather
than saying that individual men oppressed women, we see that oppression of
women came from underlying bias of patriarchal society.
I would like to conclude by saying that we hope to provide you with a hospitable
platform where you, with your skills, vast knowledge, and diplomatic courtesies
and the zeal to stand and fight for a cause, take an experience with you that doesn’t
just restrict to the committee room or a particular aspect but enhance and add up to
your overall personality, enhancing your skills while you undergo the never ending
process of learning. Let’s enhance the skill to “Débat.Discuter.Décider”.
Regards
Aasmi Abrol
Chairperson (UNCSW)
 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the world's main policy-
making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and the advancement of
women.
It is part of the United Nations, and works to promote women's political, economic,
civil, social and educational rights.
The CSW also works for equality, development and peace, monitors whether
measures are being implemented, and makes sure that gender issues are considered
across the UN.
It can also highlight urgent problems, such as the situation of women and girls
affected by conflict.
The CSW is instrumental in promoting women’s rights, documenting the reality of
women’s lives throughout the world, and shaping global standards on gender
equality and the empowerment of women.
In 1996, ECOSOC in resolution expanded the Commission’s mandate and decided
that it should take a leading role in monitoring and reviewing progress and
problems in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for
Action, and in mainstreaming a gender perspective in UN activities.
During the Commission’s annual two-week session, representatives of UN
Member States, civil society organizations and UN entities gather at UN
headquarters in New York.
They discuss progress and gaps in the implementation of the 1995 Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action, the key global policy document on gender
equality, and the 23rd special session of the General Assembly held in 2000, as
well as emerging issues that affect gender equality and the empowerment of
women.
Member States agree on further actions to accelerate progress and promote
women’s enjoyment of their rights in political, economic, and social fields.
 ABOUT THE AGENDA
SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND
HUMAN RIGHTS
Women’s sexual and reproductive health is related to multiple human rights,
including the right to life, the right to be free from torture, the right to health, the
right to privacy, the right to education, and the prohibition of discrimination. The
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the Committee
on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) have both clearly
indicated that women’s right to health includes their sexual and reproductive
health.
This means that States have obligations to respect, protect and fulfill rights related
to women’s sexual and reproductive health. The Special Rapporteur on the right to
health maintains that women are entitled to reproductive health care services, and
goods and facilities that are:
 available in adequate numbers;
 accessible physically and economically;
 accessible without discrimination;

Examples of violations
 Despite these obligations, violations of women’s sexual and reproductive
health and rights are frequent. These take many forms, including:
 denial of access to services that only women require;
 poor quality services;
 subjecting women’s access to services to third party authorization;
 forced sterilization, forced virginity examinations, and forced abortion,
without women’s prior consent;
 female genital mutilation (FGM); and
 early marriage.
CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF SEXUAL AND
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH VIOLATIONS
Violations of women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights are often due to
deeply engrained beliefs and societal values pertaining to women’s sexuality.
Patriarchal concepts of women’s roles within the family mean that women are
often valued based on their ability to reproduce.
Early marriage and pregnancy, or repeated pregnancies spaced too closely
together—often as the result of efforts to produce male offspring because of the
preference for sons—has a devastating impact on women’s health with sometimes
fatal consequences. Women are also often blamed for infertility, suffering
ostracism and being subjected to various human rights violations as a result.

RELEVANT HUMAN RIGHT STANDARDS

CEDAW (article 16) guarantees women equal rights in deciding "freely and
responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to the
information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights."

CEDAW (article 10) also specifies that women’s right to education includes
"access to specific educational information to help to ensure the health and well-
being of families, including information and advice on family planning."

The Beijing Platform for Action states that "the human rights of women include
their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related
to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion,
discrimination and violence."

The CEDAW Committee’s General Recommendation 24 recommends that States

priorities the "prevention of unwanted pregnancy through family planning and sex
education."
The CESCR General Comment 14 has explained that the provision of maternal
health services is comparable to a core obligation which cannot be derogated from
under any circumstances, and the States have to the immediate obligation to take
deliberate, concrete, and targeted steps towards fulfilling the right to health in the
context of pregnancy and childbirth.

The CESCR General Comment 22 recommends States "to repeal or eliminate laws,
policies and practices that criminalize, obstruct or undermine access by individuals
or a particular group to sexual and reproductive health facilities, services, goods
and information."
 GENDER EQUALITY HEALTH INDEX

Since 2013, the Gender Equality Index has been recognized by EU institutions and
Member States as a key benchmark for gender equality in the EU. The 6th edition
of the Index covers a range of indicators in the domains of society and life most
affected by the COVID-19 crisis.
Although Index scores are mostly based on 2019 data, and therefore cannot capture
the full impact of the crisis on gender equality, the report provides ample evidence
of the pandemic’s negative repercussions on women in the domains of work,
money, knowledge, time, power and health.
It also addresses the spike in violence against women and how the most
disadvantaged and marginalized groups of women and men in society have borne
the brunt of the impact.
Being a man or a woman has a significant impact on health, as a result of both
biological and gender-related differences. The health of women and girls is of
particular concern because, in many societies, they are disadvantaged by
discrimination rooted in sociocultural factors. For example, women and girls face
increased vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.
Some of the sociocultural factors that prevent women and girls to benefit from
quality health services and attaining the best possible level of health include:
 unequal power relationships between men and women;
 social norms that decrease education and paid employment opportunities;
 an exclusive focus on women’s reproductive roles; and
 potential or actual experience of physical, sexual and emotional violence.
While poverty is an important barrier to positive health outcomes for both men and
women, poverty tends to yield a higher burden on women and girls’ health due to,
for example, feeding practices (malnutrition) and use of unsafe cooking fuels
(COPD).
MARITAL RAPE LAWS – AN INTERNATIONAL
OVERVIEW
INTERNATIONAL BACKGROUND AND ORIGIN
The Implied Consent Theory of Sir Hale was laid in Chief Justice Sir Mathew
Hale's The History of the Pleas of the Crown published in 1736. It said, "The
husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for
by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in
this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract." This theory paved its way
not just into the common law system of Britain but also into the legal system of all
its colonies.

The Doctrine of Coverture is another principle found in the common law system
that provided support to the Implied Consent Theory. According to this doctrine,
the legal rights of a woman were subsumed by her husbands upon marriage. This
doctrine arises from the legal fiction that the wife and husband were the same
people.
A married woman's legal status was feme covert while an unmarried woman's
status was feme sole. While an unmarried woman had the right to make contracts
on her property, a married woman didn't.

The Doctrine of Coverture was dominant in England until it received backlash in

the mid-19th century by the wave of the feminist movement. It was regarded as
oppressive, hindering a woman from exercising her legal and financial rights

Marital rape was not considered to be a crime in Britain until the landmark
judgement in 1991 of R vs R. After multiple appeals the House of Lords finally
ruled against marital rape unanimously, stating that "Nowadays it cannot seriously
be maintained that by marriage a wife submits herself irrevocably to sexual
intercourse in all circumstances."
CRIMINALISATION OF MARITAL RAPE IN OTHER
COUNTRIES
Poland was the first country to explicitly criminalize marital rape in 1932.
Australia, under the influence of the second wave of feminism in 1976 was the first
common law country to pass reforms and criminalize marital rape.

Since the 1980's several common law countries have criminalized marital rape like
South Africa, Ireland, Israel, Ghana etc. Over the past two decades, several
Scandinavian countries and the Communist bloc have followed the suit.

In New York, the Court of Appeal struck down the exception of marital immunity
from the Code in 1984. All 50 states of the United States have made marital rape a
crime.
In 2002 Nepal criminalized marital rape. The Supreme Court held that the
exception of marital rape went against the constitutional right of equal protection
before the law and the right to privacy of an individual.

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION REGARDING

MARITAL RAPE

In 2013, the UN Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women

(CEDAW) suggested that India should end marital impunity. Article 1 of CEDAW
defines "Discrimination of Women" as "any distinction...made based on sex which
has the effect of impairing...the exercise by women, irrespective of their marital
status...of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the...social, cultural, civil or
any other field".

The marital impunity conferred under the Indian Penal code also contravenes
General Recommendation 19, which deemed mental and sexual harm upon women
discriminatory in nature.
It notes that sexual and mental harm deprives the woman of equal exercise of
human and fundamental rights. General Recommendation 35 adds to General
Recommendation 19 and states that marital rape is rated based on lack of free
consent and the presence of coercive measures.

Although India has not signed the optional protocol of CEDAW, it is still obliged
to protect women irrespective of their marital status under Article 2(f).
Noncompliance with the said provision may attract sanctions from the
organization.

By conferring marital immunity, India also violates the International Covenant on

Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

According to Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political

Rights, the domestic law of the member state should provide equal protection of
status and dignity to all citizens irrespective of their status or race. Marital rape
discriminates between married and an unmarried woman.

As a member state, India should not derogate from any fundamental right
mentioned as per Article 5. India also violates Article 1 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights because of the discriminatory nature of exception 2
to article 376.

India's law is also in contravention with the Fourth World Conference on Women
held in Beijing. The Beijing Action Platform encourages countries to enforce the
provision of CEDAW, including the Optional Protocol, and to amend or remove
the discriminatory provision in the law of the country.

The 59th session of the Commission of Human Rights in 2003 observed that
violence against women constitutes a breach of their fundamental and human
rights.

The United Nation has raised flags time and often about the perilous legislation
that allow marital rape. UN Women in its flagship annual Progress of the World's
Women report urged the member countries to criminalize marital rape. It also
deeply criticized the "marry your rapist" law prevalent in various countries.
PUNISHMENT FOR MARITAL RAPE ACROSS
NATIONS
Marital Rape is punishable for a lifetime of the convict., especially if the victim is
killed in Liechtenstein, Mongolia, Rwanda.
In Guatemala, the Philippines, Serbia, Grenada marital rape can be punished for up
to 30-50 years. Marital rape is punishable with up to 10-30 years of imprisonment
in Mozambique, Ecuador, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Greece, Argentina and
Monaco.

STATUS IN INDIA

The debate over Marital Rape has been a topic of heated discussion over the last
few years. The controversial exception 2 of Article 375 of the Indian Penal Code is
currently being debated over in the Delhi High Court.
The exception has been challenged by RIT Foundation, All India Democratic
Women Association and two individuals. Opposing the striking down of this
exception are the Delhi government, NGO Hridaya Foundation and Amit Lakhani
and Ritwik Bisaria of Men Welfare Trust.

Exception 2 of section 375 of the Indian Penal Code states that "Sexual intercourse
or sexual acts by a man with his own wife not being under fifteen years of age, is
not rape" *
This exception explicitly makes rape on one's wife, above the age of fifteen
permissible.

The primary argument for the criminalization of marital rape is that rape
committed on a woman is rape, an offence red in teeth and claw. Discrimination
between a married woman and an unmarried one does not stand any reasonable
nexus and violates the fundamental rights granted to the citizens under Article 14
(Right to Equality) and Article 21 (Right to Life) of the Indian Constitution
Men's rights activists opine that the criminalization of marital rape may serve as a
ground for many women to maliciously lodge a false complaint against their
husbands.
They argue that marital rape should not be criminalized as it will serve as a tool
for the wife to harass her husband. The male victim will not have enough evidence
to prove his innocence as the relation between a wife and her husband is essentially
sexual in nature and the prime testimony of the crime will be the wife's complaint.

However it has been rightly pointed out by those in Favour of the criminalization
of marital rape that every law has the scope of being misused, and if the legislature
were to stop making laws fearing their misuse, then no law would have been
enacted to protect the liberty of the citizen.
India already has existing laws against perjury that can be invoked to prevent the
law from becoming a tool in the hands of miscreants.
As per reports, Marital Rape is not a crime in only 32 countries of the world. This
list includes names like the Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India.
Despite being a progressive country, India has still retained archaic colonial laws.
Interestingly England criminalized Marital Rape in 1994.
FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH INTIMATE
PARTNER VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE
AGAINST WOMEN

Intimate partner and sexual violence are the result of factors occurring at
individual, family, community and wider society levels that interact with each
other to increase or reduce risk (protective). Some are associated with being a
perpetrator of violence, some are associated with experiencing violence, and some
are associated with both.
Risk factors for both intimate partner and sexual violence include:
 lower levels of education (perpetration of sexual violence and experience of
sexual violence);
 a history of exposure to child maltreatment (perpetration and experience);
 witnessing family violence (perpetration and experience);
 antisocial personality disorder (perpetration);
 harmful use of alcohol (perpetration and experience);
 harmful masculine behaviors, including having multiple partners or attitudes
that condone violence (perpetration);
 community norms that privilege or ascribe higher status to men and lower
status to women;
 low levels of women’s access to paid employment; and
 low level of gender equality (discriminatory laws, etc.).
Factors specifically associated with intimate partner violence include:
 history of exposure to violence;
 marital discord and dissatisfaction;
 difficulties in communicating between partners; and
 male controlling behaviors towards their partners.
 Factors specifically associated with sexual violence perpetration include:
 beliefs in family honors and sexual purity;
 ideologies of male sexual entitlement; and
  weak legal sanctions for sexual violence.

HEALTH CONSEQUENCES

Intimate partner (physical, sexual and psychological) and sexual violence cause
serious short- and long-term physical, mental, sexual and reproductive health
problems for women. They also affect their children’s health and wellbeing.
This violence leads to high social and economic costs for women, their families
and societies. Such violence can:
 Have fatal outcomes like homicide or suicide.
 Lead to injuries, with 42% of women who experience intimate partner
violence reporting an injury because of this violence.
 This leads to unintended pregnancies, induced abortions, gynecological
problems, and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. WHO's 2013
study on the health burden associated with violence against women found
that women who had been physically or sexually abused were 1.5 times
more likely to have a sexually transmitted infection and, in some regions,
HIV, compared to women who had not experienced partner violence. They
are also twice as likely to have an abortion.
 Intimate partner violence in pregnancy also increases the likelihood of
miscarriage, stillbirth, pre-term delivery and low birth weight babies. The
same 2013 study showed that women who experienced intimate partner
violence were 16% more likely to suffer a miscarriage and 41% more likely
to have a pre-term birth.
 These forms of violence can lead to depression, post-traumatic stress and
other anxiety disorders, sleep difficulties, eating disorders, and suicide
attempts. The 2013 analysis found that women who have experienced
intimate partner violence were almost twice as likely to experience
depression and problem drinking.
 Health effects can also include headaches, pain syndromes (back pain,
abdominal pain, chronic pelvic pain) gastrointestinal disorders, limited
mobility and poor overall health.
  Sexual violence, particularly during childhood, can lead to increased
smoking, substance use, and risky sexual behaviors. It is also associated with
perpetration of violence (for males) and being a victim of violence (for
females).

IMPACT ON CHILDREN
 Children who grow up in families where there is violence may suffer a range
of behavioral and emotional disturbances. These can also be associated with
perpetrating or experiencing violence later in life.

 Intimate partner violence has also been associated with higher rates of infant
and child mortality and morbidity (through, for example, diarrheal disease or
malnutrition and lower immunization rates).

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC COSTS

The social and economic costs of intimate partners and sexual violence are
enormous and have ripple effects throughout society.
Women may suffer isolation, inability to work, loss of wages, lack of participation
in regular activities and limited ability to care for themselves and their children.
QUESTIONS TO BE ANSWERED IN THE
COMMITTEE

1. How can we ensure that marginalized and vulnerable groups, such as women
with disabilities or refugees, have equal access to reproductive healthcare
services and protection from marital rape?

2. How can technology and digital platforms be leveraged to provide

information and support related to reproductive rights and health,
particularly for women in remote or underserved areas?

3. How can healthcare providers be trained and sensitized to address the unique
needs of survivors of marital rape and provide them with appropriate support
and care?

4. What steps can governments take to ensure that women have access to safe
and legal abortion services, and how does this relate to the broader
discussion of reproductive rights?

5. How can we ensure that women have full and equal access to reproductive
health services and information, regardless of their marital status?

6. What are the primary challenges women face in accessing reproductive

healthcare, and how can these barriers be overcome?