Marital rape is a form of Sexual and Gender-based Violence in which one spouse has forceful sexual intercourse with the other spouse against their will. The Marriage and Divorce Bill aims to prevent marital rape through the provision of conjugal rights. These rights enumerate grounds for which one spouse may deny the other the right to sexual intercourse, including poor health, surgery that affects the capacity to engage in sexual intercourse, or childbirth. The penalties for contravening this provision include both civil and criminal liability
In our on-going Common Matters Campaign, Trac FM partners with UWONET and 9 evenly-distributed radio stations across the country to inquire from Ugandans about their views on conjugal rights. The poll question, which was active for a week, sought to understand people's opinions on the circumstances under which a man or woman can deny their spouse conjugal rights.
With a total of 4052 responses, the results were as follows: 35% of the responses said conjugal rights can be denied when the man or woman is in poor health, 27% claimed after circumcision or childbirth, 26% said whenever the man or woman is not intrested, and lastly 13% believed under no circumstances should conjugal rights be denied.
At the end of the poll question, each radio station held an on-air debate about the results with representatives from UWONET and various duty bearers in the studio. You can listen to some of the recordings of the talkshows, find the links below the infographic.
Together with local media partners, Trac FM identifies and formulates questions regarding public services, the survey questions are later broadcasted on radio and people send in SMS participating in the poll questions free of charge, incoming SMS reports are visualized in smart graphic designs and relayed within seconds for radio presenters to update listeners on survey results.
