Dear Editor,
This allegation circulating in the public domain that the
government is embedding a marital bill into the Marco Amendment is absolutely
untrue.
The current Sexual Offences Act already lays out in
detail in Section 15 that sexual intercourse with a spouse without consent
under certain conditions is an offence. Under the existing twenty-three year
old Sexual Offences Act, an offender can be imprisoned for fifteen years for
sexual assault of a spouse under the following conditions:
-
If there is an existing divorce decree at
the time of the sexual assault;
-
Legal separation;
-
The existence of a restraining order or a
court order against cohabitation or molestation of the spouse.
Further, sexual assault by a spouse pursuant to the conditions
in the amended Sexual Offences Act can result in the offender being placed on the proposed
national sex offenders register; this has absolutely nothing to do with the
controversial Marital Rape Law. This Act has been on the law books since 1991
and to date this law has not changed.
Editor, without coming across as trite, I find it
necessary to once again quote our local thespian, Dr. Cleveland Eneas: “if you
want to hide something from Bahamians, just put it in writing.” The referenced bills
tabled in Parliament are now a permanent fixture of the Hansard and fully
accessible to the public, and yes it’s all there boldly in writing.
Yours etc;
Elcott Coleby