The Myanmar government is drafting a new law that would penalize a man for living with a woman without marrying her, AFP reported yesterday. Under the law, a woman would be able to press charges against a man who refuses to marry her after they have lived together, which could result in his imprisonment for five years, or seven if she is pregnant.
“We are now drafting a bill to protect women and prevent violence against them. Women can complain if they are bullied into not getting married after living together. We will give them protection under the law,” Social Welfare Department director Naw Tha Wah told AFP.
As a woman, I’m not really sure where to begin with this groundless “logic” that supposedly passes for women’s rights when in honesty, it’s meaningless legal groundwork that further positions women as victims and gives us no real additional power.
If I agreed to move in with a partner before we got married or even engaged, I would hope that we would have had come to that decision following a long, thoughtful, and mature conversation. A discussion about getting married is entirely separate from one about living together, and agreeing to the second does not automatically presuppose the first. If I felt the need or desire to press charges against my partner for not wanting to marry me once we moved in together, I would also hope someone would step in and point out how dysfunctional my relationship was.
The second part of this drafted law — that is, that a man could face up to seven years in prison if he refuses to marry a woman whom he’s gotten pregnant — is also meant to “protect” women who have been victims of rape. I’m confounded as to how the government could think that a woman who has become pregnant as a result of sexual assault would want to marry her assaulter, let alone see that as a “right” to which they are entitled.
Are the negative connotations associated with raising a fatherless child really worse than sharing a household with your rapist? Think about it — the premise of this law is that marrying your rapist is less shameful or more desirable than being a single mother.
This law is also based on the assumption that a woman needs a man to raise a child, which is obviously untrue. If the man is a rapist, he will not make a good father to the child who is a product of his sexual assault; this is not to mention the violent household that will most certainly emerge as a result of such a forced union between a victim and her assailant. If a woman gets pregnant as a result of consensual sex but the man refuses to marry her or father her child, surely she would be better off without him in the first place. An individual forced into marriage with the threat of imprisonment will also probably not make a good spouse or a good parent.
There is a plethora of other laws that the government could pass if it really wanted to help women, especially single mothers. New abortion laws, for instance, would be a good place to start. As of now, the Myanmar Penal Code cites abortion as illegal, unless the mother’s health is in jeopardy. Specifically, Section 312 of the Code states:
Whoever voluntarily causes a woman with child to miscarry shall, if such miscarriage be not caused in good faith for the purpose of saving the life of the woman, be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both; and, if the woman be quick with child, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine.
Explanation. A woman who causes herself to miscarry is within the meaning of this section.
Anyone genuinely concerned about women’s rights would place more focus on giving women more rights with regard to control over their own bodies – including in cases of an unwanted pregnancy – than on reinforcing old laws that force women to carry out their pregnancies, voluntary or not.
Passing harsher laws for rape without victim-blaming is also another point that the government could emphasize. According to AFP, Naw Tha Wah claims that “the new law would criminalize domestic violence for the first time and make gang-rape a capital offence.” I do not understand why domestic violence and rape in general are not already capital offences, and why they cannot be so unless the victim files for her assailant to legally marry her. It is also unclear as to how marrying a victim negates or weakens the act of rape or abuse itself.
Of rape, Section 376 of the Code states:
Whoever commits rape shall be punished with transportation for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine, unless the woman raped is his own wife and is not under twelve years of age, in which case he shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.
The government needs to focus on passing laws that better prevent rape – not laws that presume women want to marry rapists.
This law still needs cabinet and a parliamentary approval to pass, but if this is the direction in which women’s rights are heading, then it needs to change. This is not my kind of feminism, and these are not the rights that I as a woman want, need or deserve.
Reader Interactions