Activists carry signs calling for changes to the rape law to help end sexual violence against women, children and homosexuals. Other demonstrators submitted a letter to National Legislative Assembly member Prayong Ronnarong at Government House yesterday.

The Network to Stop Sexual Violence held a seminar yesterday on "Rape in the family: Time for change" to voice concern about the NLA's proposed amendments to sexual offence laws in the Penal Code's sections 276 and 277.

Nattaya Boonpakdee, of the Women's Health Advocacy Foundation, said the network was please with the NLA's efforts to remove sexual prejudice against women.

The rape law saw a wife as her husband's asset. It served a social value that a wife has a duty

to satisfy her husband's sexual desire whenever he wanted, she said.

Marital rape forced many women to have abortions and many were infected with HIV from their husbands, she

added.

According to the survey "Domestic Violence Against Women", 30 per cent of women facing marital rape could not get legal protection because section 276 protected only women "who were not the [perpetrator's] wife", said Assoc Prof Kritaya Archavanitkul of Mahidol University's Institute for Population and Social Research (IPSR).

Jadet Chaowilai, of the Friends of Women Foundation, said many victims of marital rape sought help from the foundation but there was no way to help them - because section 276 did not protect wives.

The NLA next week would decide whether to delete the words "who is not the wife" from the section to help protect women from marital rape, he said.

Section 276 states: "Whoever has sexual intercourse with a women, who is not his wife, against her will, by threat by any means whatsoever, by committing any act of violence, by taking advantage of the women being in the condition of inability to resist, or by causing the women to mistake him for another person, shall be punished with imprisonment of four to 20 years and fined Bt8,000 to Bt40,000."

While welcoming the amendment of section 276, the network was concerned that section 277 still allows rapists to escape punishment if they marry a child victim.

The section states that if an offender sexually offends against a child over 13 years but not over 15, with her (or his) consent the court would allow them to marry and the offender would not be punished.

If the Court grants permission for them to marry while

the offender is incarcerated

for the offence, he would be released.

Anjana Suvarnananda, of the Anjaree Group, said children under 15 were not mature enough to marry. The law, which offered an offender a chance to escape punishment, was just a licence to rape.

"It violates all humanitarian principles," she said, adding that some ethnic societies that allow child marriage were looking to change this tradition.

Nattaya said marriage was still proposed as a solution in the amendment because some NLA members were concerned that punishment could violate ethnic traditions in which youngsters could marry.

"But these ethnic societies are discussing this tradition. Many young couples commit suicide because they fail to adjust to the jump from child to adult through marriage.

"Ethnic societies are discussing a change for the better," Nattaya said.

Stop Sexual Violence is a network of organisations that support changes in Thailand's rape law.

Yesterday it submitted an open letter to the NLA urging members to consider amending the law.

Subhatra Bhumiprabhas

The Nation