Dec 27, 2004 01:48 PM
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(Updated Dec 27, 2004 01:48 PM)
*Warning: The content of this review may not be suitable for all age groups. Parental guidance recommended.
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In my previous review, I tried to bring out the bitter reality of marital rape in front of everyone. If you think it can?t get worse than that, you are very wrong indeed. An even worse scenario is when a HIV positive husband forcibly haves sex with his wife, infects her and also pulls her with him in the dark valley of AIDS. I wonder how much different is this from Satti Pratha! Before we discuss this in detail, I?d like you to read about a few such incidents. This will give you a more clear idea about how things actually are, around the globe.
In 1997, when Rebecca Samanya?s husband found out he was HIV-positive, he killed himself, but not before he raped her one last time. Samanya, a Muganda, is thirty-six. She was the first of three wives, all of whom are HIV-positive. Her husband also had a girlfriend who was HIV-positive. Samanya?s husband would force her to have sex so that she could bear children.?He would say that I have two kids so he should have more. . . . I had sex with him. If I was in the home what would I do? I tried to tell him I don?t want to but he would fight. . . . He used to force me to have sex through our marriage. His aunt [a nurse] told us to use condoms. He refused. I tried to persuade him but he refused.
He beat me because I didn?t want to have sex with him. He broke my finger.? She recalled the night he died:?It was a while since we had sex because he was at my co-wife?s place. He came back and spent the night. He had come with his poison. I laid my bed down on the floor. He raped me and afterwards left the house and poisoned himself.? Samanya found out she was HIV-positive when she had a miscarriage. Her in-laws blamed her for her husband?s death and threw her out of the marital home. She now lives alone and supports herself as a gardener.
(Human Rights Watch interview with Rebecca Samanya, Luwero, December 18, 2002.)
I was commonly the one who was beaten. He would beat me to the point that he was too ashamed to take me to the doctor. He forced me to have sex with him and beat me if I refused. This went for every [wife]. Even when he was HIV-positive he still wanted sex. He refused to use a condom. He said he cannot eat sweets with the paper [wrapper] on.
(Interview with Sules Kiliesa, Tororo, December 16, 2002.)
In 1994, Namaganda?s HIV-positive husband forced her to have unprotected sex with him until he became bedridden. He routinely beat her viciously, and, on one occasion, attacked her so violently that he bit off half of her left ear. Then, while he lay dying of AIDS too weak to beat her, he ordered his younger brother to beat her instead. Namaganda is now HIV-positive.
(Human Rights Watch interview with Hadija Namaganda, Iganga, January 11, 2003)
He never forced me into sex. He would beat me for other things but not sex. . . . There were other times I had sex with him when I didn?t want to. I would just do it. What could I do? It?s the Banyankore tradition. . . . In our tradition the men don?t physically force you but they don?t need to. It is the honor of your parents. I have never used a condom. It?s taboo. I am HIV-positive. I don?t know where it came from. My first husband died. He died of AIDS.
(Human Rights Watch interview with Masturah Tibegwya, Luwero, December 18, 2002.)
These are just few of countless cases I came across while going through the Human Rights Report. Some of them were so sadist that I couldn?t dare to mention them here. For a moment I just couldn?t believe all this could be true!
Due to their reluctance against using condoms, they not only make their wives HIV positive but pregnant too and then even the newborns are HIV positive. So in way they are destroying so many lives just for their own pleasure and to satisfy their chauvinist ego.
Not only this, some men force their wives to sleep around with other men, get into prostitution or anal rape them which yet again increases their chances of becoming HIV positive. They ask them to sleep around with other men since some sadistic people get relief in gross activities like three-some, wife swapping, gang rape etc. Encouraging wives to get into prostitution is more a case with the poor families.
Coming to anal sex now. I guess you would already know that risk of AIDS is at its maximum during anal sex. That's probably because the sensitive lining of the rectum is likely to tear during intercourse, allowing AIDS-infected blood or semen to pass directly into a sex partner's bloodstream. And since usually Anal Sex is more enjoyable for the males they don?t hesitate in having it forcefully, not caring either about the partner?s pain or this dreaded disease.
The above-mentioned incidents and the increasing number of female HIV patients again prove my point of wives being used as a substitute for sleeping pills. Husbands don?t treat them much more than a commodity or a sex-slave.
Husbands should not force their wives into sex. It is very inhuman, unromantic and totally unhealthy to force a woman into sex. Sometimes I wonder how men can rape the women they profess to love and stare into the very same eyes - which are now filled with hurt, betrayal and mistrust - and carry on with their lives as if it never happened. Sometimes I wonder how did the most intellectual of species on the planet turn so animalistic - worse than the animals themselves.
A person - married or otherwise - is under no obligation to be a sexual toy of another person. Rape is still rape and a no is still a no even though that man is your husband. It is just like asking a woman who has been beaten to a pulp by her hubby this:'Would you consider that you have been abused by your man?'
If a person who promised to take care of you, to protect you, to keep your interest ahead of his and to spend seven lives with you can do such a reprehensible act, then how can we blame the strangers, for the increasing sex crimes! First our own houses need to be cleaned. After all, charity begins at home!
© Tanmay Singh, 2004
