The Hidden Shadow Pandemic of Marital Rape During COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreak: A Critical Role of Women’s March for Awareness of Rape, Consent, and Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Abstract

Introduction: Aurat March–the women’s rights movement has left an indelible imprint on a contradictive ensemble of a revolutionary women’s rights demand in a conventional socializing segment of society. Women’s March is an intersectional, intergenerational and inclusive feminist discourse centrally concerned with the health, education, engagement, advocacy, gender equality, freedom and empowerment. Anecdotal discourse of Aurat March, enacted amidst COVID-19 pandemic, is centrally concerned with achieving space in private and public sphere and equal sexual and reproductive rights in the marriage institution. Method: A broad research of literature and online data base related to marital rape using PsycINFO, PsycNet, PubMed, ERIC, EMBASE, Scopus, Google Scholar and Elsevier was undertaken. Manual searches of the specific intimate partner violence journals (e.g., Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Journal of Family Issues) and news articles were also included. Result: This analysis provides epistemological and media representation grounds for strategy and intervening analysis on the re-construction of the narrative of semantics of stereotyped gender roles. Further, this paper is embedded in the measure of women’s rights, bodily autonomy, sexual and reproductive rights, differential context of consent between sex and rape within the institution of marriage.