Bahamas: MPs are debating a Bill that would make marital rape a crime on the socially conservative archipelago.

Under Bahamian law, a man can be charged with raping his wife only if the two are in divorce proceedings or living apart.

Legislator Loretta Butler-Turner, who drafted the Bill, pointed out that there “is a constituency of our community that is not protected against rape - that is the bottom line.”

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/world/World-in-brief105

Run Date: 07/18/09

By Kayla Hutzler
WeNews correspondent

Cheers and Jeers

(WOMENSENEWS)–
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Female immigrants who have experienced domestic violence can now seek asylum in the United States, thanks to a decision made by the Obama administration in a recent immigration appeals court filing, the New York Times reported July 16. The case involved a Mexican woman who said her husband had repeatedly raped her at gunpoint, held her prisoner and once tried to burn her alive while she was pregnant in Mexico. She escaped with her children and came to the U.S. in 2004, the Associated Press reported. Just last year, the Bush administration insisted in the same case that the woman did not meet U.S. asylum standards.

The new standards set forth by this decision require women to prove that they were abused, treated as subordinates or property and that they could not find help or safety in their own country, the New York Times reported.

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=4076