According to data from the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) conducted between 2019 and 2021, one in every 25 women in India reported being subjected to sexual violence by their husbands. Sexual violence in marriage was found to be more common in Karnataka, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam.
The survey questioned women between the ages of 18 and 49 who are currently or were married at some point—a category referred to as “ever married”—about the types of violence they faced by their partners.
It was found that 3.9 per cent of women reported sexual violence often or sometimes. In Karnataka it was 9.7 per cent, in Bihar it was 7.1 per cent, in West Bengal it was 6.8 per cent and in Assam it was 6.1 per cent.
The survey showed that Karnataka—a state where domestic sexual violence was heavily reported by the ever-married women surveyed—has almost one in every 10 women who was or is being sexually abused by her partner. Around 7.9 per cent of women said they were physically forced into having sex after they denied consent. Around 6 per cent of women reported that they were forced to have sex or perform sexual acts they didn’t want to through different forms of coercion. Another 3 per cent of respondents said their husbands used physical abuse to force them to perform sexual acts they didn’t like.
In 2015-16, the survey had recorded 6.3 per cent of women in Karnataka who reported sexual violence in marriage. From that, it has gone up to 9.7 per cent. However, law experts believe it can be attributed to an increase in reporting, rather than a spike in violence. However, with recent instances of the Delhi High Court and the Gujarat High Court asking that marital rape laws in the country should be reviewed, the NFHS-5 data gains new meaning.