Ghana: Permission for Domestic Violence: Marital Rape in Ghanaian Marriages

On February 22, 2007, the Ghanaian Parliament passed the long awaited Domestic Violence Act (DV Act). Although the original bill specifically prohibited marital rape, parliament bowed to public pressure and removed the provision, leaving husbands free to rape their wives with impunity. Marital rape constitutes a violation of women's human rights. The Ghanaian parliament should act immediately to expressly make marital rape a crime, writes Nancy Kaymar Stafford in this forthcoming publication.