Jordan Moves to Repeal Marry-Your-Rapist Law
A handful of countries, including several in the Arab world as well as in the Philippines, a majority Catholic
country, have maintained legal provisions for men accused or convicted of rape to avoid punishment.
1, 2017
The Parliament in Jordan voted Tuesday to revoke a law allowing rapists to evade criminal prosecution if
they marry their victims, becoming the latest country in the Middle East to move to scrap such laws.
A government committee in Jordan had recommended that the law, known as Article 308 of the country’s penal code, be revoked
and the lower house of the Jordanian Parliament voted to do so on Tuesday.
Suad Abu-Dayyeh, a Middle East expert at Equality Now, a women’s rights group, called
it "a historical moment." Please verify you’re not a robot by clicking the box.
Cheers went up from the spectators gallery in Parliament when the measure passed,
according to an Associated Press report from Amman, the Jordanian capital.
Morocco repealed its marry-your-rapist law in 2014, after a widely publicized case of a teenager
who killed herself after she was forced to wed the man she accused of raping her.