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Marital rape and its impact on women’s mental health

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2023

H. Abrebak*
Affiliation:
Faculty of medicine of tangier, Tangier, Morocco
F. Z. Chamsi
Affiliation:
Faculty of medicine of tangier, Tangier, Morocco
A. El Ammouri
Affiliation:
Faculty of medicine of tangier, Tangier, Morocco
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

In Morocco, the only legal setting for sexuality is marriage, which presumes automatic consent between the couple, as much so that Islam has authorized any sexual practice between spouses except for anal sex .

In our socio-cultural context, it is difficult to determine the extent of the phenomenon, the subject being taboo with a jurisprudence that refuses to recognize the reality of rape between spouses.

Objectives

The objective of this work is to emphasize this phenomenon of marital rape, its psychological repercussions, its legal and religious framework in order to debanalize this phenomenon and act in favor of women’s mental health.

Methods

Our study is conducted on 3 patients seen in liaison psychiatry admitted to the surgical departments for organic complications of medium to severe severity, secondary to rape in the marital context where our expertise was requested in front of the great psychic distress of the latter.

We collected information by taking notes after our psychiatric examination.

Results

Our three patients were victims of rape and violence by their husbands on several occasions, prior to this hospitalization but never reported such an incident. Our patients presented a wide spectrum of psychiatric pathologies: post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, generalized anxiety, suicidal ideas. One of them has acted out on the latter . In addition to these psychological repercussions, two patients had presented complications of a gyneco-obstetrical nature (a miscarriage and a premature delivery). It should be mentioned that these acts of rape in our three patients were always accompanied by physical violence.

Conclusions

In our Moroccan context, rape within a married couple is not yet recognized by our society, which admits that a woman does not have the right to refuse sexual relations to her husband.

Much remains to be done to familiarize and sensitize society to the reality of marital rape and to ensure that women victims obtain adequate support and care.

Disclosure of Interest

None Declared

Type
Abstract
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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