Jordan Moves to Repeal Marry-Your-Rapist Law<br />A handful of countries, including several in the Arab world as well as in the Philippines, a majority Catholic<br />country, have maintained legal provisions for men accused or convicted of rape to avoid punishment.<br />1, 2017<br />The Parliament in Jordan voted Tuesday to revoke a law allowing rapists to evade criminal prosecution if<br />they marry their victims, becoming the latest country in the Middle East to move to scrap such laws.<br />A government committee in Jordan had recommended that the law, known as Article 308 of the country’s penal code, be revoked<br />and the lower house of the Jordanian Parliament voted to do so on Tuesday.<br />Suad Abu-Dayyeh, a Middle East expert at Equality Now, a women’s rights group, called<br />it "a historical moment." Please verify you’re not a robot by clicking the box.<br />Cheers went up from the spectators gallery in Parliament when the measure passed,<br />according to an Associated Press report from Amman, the Jordanian capital.<br />Morocco repealed its marry-your-rapist law in 2014, after a widely publicized case of a teenager<br />who killed herself after she was forced to wed the man she accused of raping her.
