The Deputy Vice Chancellor (Administration), Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Prof Carol Arinze-Umobi, has advocated that wife rape be treated as a serious crime.Prof Arinze-Umobi made the call while delivering the 39th inaugural lecture of UNIZIK titled: “The wife and right to ‘no’ in matrimony: The divide,” at the university auditorium.The professor of rights law said many criminal justice systems across the world either grant legal impunity for marital rape by upholding an exemption for sexual assault in marriage or by treating marital rape as if it was fundamentally different from other sexual assaults.“Women who are sexually violated by men who are their husbands or intimate partners are left unprotected,” she lamented.
The DVC argued that marital rape was a crime and, therefore, punishable under both domestic and international laws. She said women must be free from any form of violence, sexual, physical, economic or psychological. She said Nigeria had not criminalised rape in matrimony, saying it was time to do so.She called on the government to amend Section 6 of the Criminal Code Act (CCA) and move along the global best practices.She said: “The Legislature, the Judiciary as well as the Executive arms of the government must take the leading position in making the laws, executing the laws and interpreting the laws where conflicts exist on issues of human rights of women.“In Nigeria, the absence of such laws meant that women who are married are stripped of their fundamental legal protections and basic human rights afforded to other women, denied equal benefit and equal participation in social, economic and domestic life.”She said wife rape inhibits women’s expressiveness, noting that wife rape and beatings were very serious and cruel forms of husbands’ abuse of their power over their wives.She identified ill-health, unreadiness to accept the psychological, physical and emotional involvement in sex, unhappiness, ill-treatment by husband, economic conditions/depression, as reasons why a woman might deny her husband sex.
In his remark, the Vice Chancellor (VC), Prof Joseph Eberendu Ahaneku, explained that the inaugural lecture series were used to celebrate excellence and the traditions of the institution.Ahaneku described the Prof Arinze-Umeobi as a seasoned teacher, adding that the institution was not just famous for teaching and research, but also carrying out community services through inaugural lectures to give back to society.The Inaugural Lecture Committee Chairman, Prof. Amechi Oyeka, praised the lecturer for becoming first woman professor from the faculty of Law and the seventh woman Professor to deliver inaugural lecture in UNIZIK.The decoration of the inaugural lecturer by the VC and a short drama to illustrate the lecturer’s topic marked the high points of the event.Credit: The Nation
